


Cherry Pies and Yellow Eyes

by ireadhpinenochian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Middle School, Fluff, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ireadhpinenochian/pseuds/ireadhpinenochian
Summary: All Dean wanted to do during his summer vacation was hang out with his new boyfriend, Cas. You know, the guy he's been in love with practically his whole life. But plans change when kids start going missing and whispers about a monster in the woods start getting loud enough to become not only believable, but probable. Dean's too preoccupied with Cas and his perfect mouth at first to realize that these disappearances aren't random, but rather like boxes being ticked off of a list on which Dean is horrified to find his little brother's name.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is my 2016 DCBB! I just want to give a shout out to my awesome betas, [ambersagen](http://ambersagen.tumblr.com/) and [extremely-forgettable](http://extremely-forgettable.tumblr.com/)! And of course a huge thank you to my super awesome artist, [alittlehuntress](http://alittlehuntress.tumblr.com/)! Her art master post can be found [here](http://alittlehuntress.tumblr.com/post/153225141232/art-for-the-dcbb-2016-fic-cherry-pies-and-yellow)!

The sun beat down on them, sweat sticking their shirts to their backs. There wasn’t even a breeze to bring relief. The only hope they had was to make it to the park quickly and find some of the shade that was lacking on all streets leading to it.

“It’s too hot,” Sam whined, brushing back some of the hair that had stuck to his forehead.

Dean wiped a bead of sweat away before it managed to drip off the end of his nose. “I’m not the one who begged me to take them to the park.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was going to be this hot!” Sam protested. “And you were going to the park anyway. It’s not like I made you go.”

Dean threw a grin over his shoulder at Sam’s scowl. “Yeah, but I’m not the one complaining.”

After that, the only sounds between the brothers were their footfalls, worn sneakers on cement, and an occasional groan when the head became overwhelmingly unbearable. The sweltering summer heat had seemed to come early this year, the yellowing grass in the otherwise perfectly manicured lawns a strong testament to the fact.

“Freakin’ finally,” Dean muttered once the park came into view, the towering trees finally promising some much needed shade. “Go grab that table near the woods before someone else does,” he told Sam as he stopped to appreciate the fact that he’d finally arrived at their destination.

“Why don’t you do it?” Sam said. “You’ve got two legs.”

“You’ve got youth on your side,” Dean replied dramatically, wiping the perspiration from his brow with an extra flourish.

Sam snorted. “Dean, you’re fourteen.”

“Yeah, and you’re only ten. You should respect your elders.”

Sam crossed his arms and planted his feet in the dying grass.

“What, you scared or something, Sammy?” Dean asked.

Sam looked down, his cheeks pink, and not just from the sunburn that was surely forming.

Dean rolled his eyes. “The monster in the woods is just an urban legend, dude. Don’t tell me you still believe in it. You think the tooth fairy’s real, too?”

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam said. “Don’t be a jerk, just come with me.”

“I’m waiting for Cas,” he replied, brushing him off with a wave of his hand.

“And what? Cas can’t see you from over there?”

“Just go save the table,” Dean told him, turning his back on him in an attempt to end the argument.

“De-ean,” Sam whined.

“Ugh, fine,” Dean said. “You’re such a baby, I swear.”

Sam pushed him. It knocked Dean off balance for a second before he recovered and put Sam in a headlock, grinding his knuckles into Sam’s scalp in a ruthless noogie.

“Get off!” Sam shouted, trying to wriggle away.

“What’s the magic word?” Dean asked, doubling the pressure.

Sam wiggled and flailed his arms. “Stop it, jerk, just get off!”

“Nu-uh,” Dean replied, keeping a tight grip on his squirming brother. “You gotta say it first!”

“What does he have to say?” a deep voice asked from behind.

Dean immediately let go of Sam and spun around on the spot. “Cas!” he said as Sam stepped out of reach.

“Dean,” Cas replied with a slight smile.

“Hey, man!” Dean nervously ruffled a hand through his sweat damp hair to try and make it more presentable, but to no avail. “I didn’t even hear you come up.”

Cas shrugged. “I get that a lot. Gabriel says he’s going to buy me a bell.”

“Nah, that’d ruin the mystery,” Dean laughed and put an arm around Cas’ shoulders. He remembered at the last minute how gross and sweaty he was, but it was too late to change tact now. Besides, Cas was just as sweaty as he was. In this heat, it’d be impossible not to be.

Thankfully, Cas just smiled and allowed Dean to lead him over to the table he had picked out. Sam followed behind them with a roll of his eyes, still making sure to keep out of Dean’s reach.

“Are Charlie and Jo here yet?” Cas asked, looking around as if he might have just missed them. He seated himself on one side of the aging wooden table, making a face when his leg came in contact with a spider web.

“Oh,” Dean said, taking a seat across from him. “Uh, I don’t think they’re coming until later.”

Cas looked up from where he was wiping his leg off. “Why not?”

“Uh,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck as Sam slid onto the bench next to him with a knowing smirk on his face.

“Yeah, Dean,” Sam said in a voice full of faked innocence. “Why aren’t they coming until later?”

Dean kicked Sam under the table, hard, and said loudly to cover Sam’s yelp of pain, “I think Jo’s mom needed her to help out with something before she could come and Charlie was caught up with some video game or something. They’ll be here later, though, so it’s not really a big deal.” Dean shrugged to play up the nonchalance.

Cas nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps we should relocate to Charlie’s house and ask to play games wither, then. It’s quite hot out here.”

Dean’s face fell. “Oh, uh, yeah. Good thinking. I’m sweating my ass off out here.” He shot Cas a quick grin.

“Yes,” Cas said. “And what a shame that would be.”

Dean felt his face heating, but was confident that the sun would take the blame.

 

The walk to Charlie’s house was long, longer in the heat. It was basically torture. Especially with the way Cas’ white shirt stuck to his chest and back. Dean had a hard time looking away, and with the way Sam was smirking in his peripheral, he wasn’t exactly being subtle.

“So, uh, Cas?” Dean said, taking a couple quick steps to be level with him.

“Yes?” he replied.

Dean let the sound of their footfalls fill the pause while Sam slowed his pace to lag behind. Sammy was annoying about ninety percent of the time, but Dean was grateful he knew where to draw the line.

“Um,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you going to the end of the year dance?”

Cas shrugged. “Meg asked me to go with her.”

Dean stumbled and blamed the uneven concrete of the sidewalk. “Meg? But you don’t even like her!”

“I do hate it when she calls me Clarence,” Cas admitted.

“Dude, you can’t go with her,” Dean exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “She’ll ruin the dance for you!”

“I haven’t said yes yet,”

Dean clamped his mouth shut on his next disparagement.

Cas sighed and scrunched his face in annoyance. “She didn’t even give me a chance to answer,” he said. “She told me I should go with her and then put her finger on my mouth and told me to think about it.”

Dean chewed on his lip. “Well, have you?”

Cas lifted his shoulders in another shrug. “Not really.”

“Oh.” Dean tried to parse out if that was a good or a bad thing.

“I think it might be fun.”

Dean’s heart sank.

“But…” Cas sighed.

“But what?” Dean demanded, unable to go even a second without hearing the next part of that sentence.

“But I don’t even know how to dance.” Cas said it like he just admitted to still watching Barney. “And I think that’s something she’ll probably expect to do.”

Dean nodded a few times, feeling a little nauseous and wondering if he was close to getting heat stroke. “I mean, if that’s your only problem…” He let out a huff of air. “It’s not a huge deal. She’ll probably think it’s cute or something, that you don’t know how. I’m sure she’ll have no problem teaching you.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but with the sharp look Cas shot him he wasn’t sure he was entirely successful.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Dean feeling even more miserable than he thought was possible. He used a balled up fist to wipe sweat from his eyes. And it was just sweat, he wasn’t _that_ pathetic. At least, that’s what he told himself.

“What about you?” Cas asked after a few minutes.

“What about me?” Dean’s voice was a bit more hoarse than usual.

Cas rolled his eyes. “Are you going to the dance?”

Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Maybe.”

“Were you going to ask someone?”

“Huh?” Dean froze like a deer in headlights. He felt like he’d been caught out by the graveled tones of his best friend.

Cas tilted his head on its side. “Who were you going to ask?”

“What?” Dean began walking again, faster than before. “No one, man. I was—um—I mean, I thought maybe we would go if we both didn’t have dates, but it’s cool—it’s fine. I think Charlie and Jo were both flying solo, too, so it’s no biggie.”

Cas quickened his pace to match Dean’s. “That sounds fun. Maybe I’ll just go with you, then.”

“Really?” Dean asked excitedly. He schooled his features into a more neutral expression and continued, “I mean, you don’t have to. We’ll still see each other there.”

“I think I’d rather go with you.”

“Yeah?” Dean couldn’t stop the huge smile from spreading.

“Yes,” Cas answered with a firm nod.

“Awesome.”

Dean smiled the rest of the way to Charlie’s. Not even the triple digit weather could get him down now.

 

“Hey, what are you nerds doing here? Wasn’t I supposed to meet you at the park?” Charlie said as soon as she opened the door.

“Have you been outside today? We’re two seconds away from heatstroke,” Dean told her as she stepped aside to let them in.

“Sweet,” Charlie said. “Now I don’t have to go outside at all. I’m glad you finally came to your senses.”

Charlie led them to her living room. “Grab a controller,” she told them, waving her hand towards her PlayStation like she was inviting them to partake in One Eyed Willy’s treasure.

The four of them played a couple of rounds of Mortal Kombat, each playing the winner (a.k.a. Charlie) until they (a.k.a. Dean, Cas, and Sam) decided that Charlie could maybe wait until they all played each other before wiping the floor with the winner.

“Alright, fine,” Charlie huffed. “I suppose that is what a good hostess and gracious winner would do. Sam and Cas can go first while Dean helps me grab some snacks for the poor losers to munch on.”

Dean rolled his eyes and followed Charlie into the kitchen while Sam and Cas started a round behind them.

Charlie hopped up on the counter and crossed her arms. “So spill,” she said.

“Spill what?” Dean asked, opening up her fridge and grabbing some sodas.

“You haven’t stopped smiling since you got here,” she told him.

“What, is that a crime now?” He kept his eyes firmly on the sodas in his hands.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Come on” she pleaded. “I know you asked us to come to the park later so you could ask him. Did he say yes?”

Dean sighed and shouldered the fridge closed. “It’s a little hard to ask someone to a dance with your dorky little brother cramping your style.”

“Please, Sam’s cool. He would’ve scampered if you asked him to.” She gave him an accusing look. “Don’t tell me that you used him as an excuse to wimp out.”

Dean shrugged, still avoiding her eyes. “Where’re the snacks?” he asked.

Charlie hopped off the counter and grabbed some chips out of a cabinet. She held them out for Dean, but pulled them back when he made a grab for them. “Losers who didn’t ask their crush to the dance don’t get chips,” she told him.

He snatched them from her. “I think by that rule, you don’t get them either.”

“Hey! That’s not fair,” she said, trying and failing to get the chips back. “My crush is doomed by heterosexuality.”

“Mine might be, too,” Dean mumbled.

“What?”

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. “Meg asked Cas to the dance.”

“Ew, what?” Charlie exclaimed. “No way he said yes.”

“He didn’t say anything. Meg got all dramatic and told him to think about it.”

“No thinking, he’s not interested,” Charlie said.

Dean let out a little laugh. “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but don’t you think you should let Cas field that question?”

Charlie narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, none of this information explains why you were all smiley when you got here. Actually, I figure you would have been all mopey and grumpy.”

Dean bit his lip to try and keep his expression in check. “Cas may have said he’d rather go with me to the dance.”

Charlie’s jaw dropped and she punched Dean in the shoulder. “Dude! You’re supposed to lead with that! _Dude!_ ”

Dean blushed and scratched the back of his neck. “Okay, well, he didn’t exactly say he’d rather go with me. Just that he’d rather go without a date with you, me, ‘n Jo than go with Meg. He may have also implied that it’s because he doesn’t know how to dance and thinks Meg will want that.”

Charlie had a distant look in her eye. “We can work with this,” she told him.

“Charlie,” Dean warned. “This isn’t some project. Just leave it alone, alright? I never should have told you in the first place.”

Charlie scoffed. “You didn’t tell me. I took one look at you after Cas’ voice dropped and just _knew_.”

“Shut up,” Dean said, his face heating. “Please just drop it, okay?”

“Fine,” Charlie huffed. “But only because I don’t think it’s very smart to discuss this when Cas is in the other room.”

Dean grabbed up the sodas, chips dangling from two fingers. “Can’t you just drop it forever?”

“Well, I guess after the dance I will.”

Shaking his head, he led the way back to the living room.

“What took you guys so long?” Sam asked.

“What are you complaining for?” Dean replied. “I know you two played like two extra rounds.”

“He’s not complaining,” Cas assured Dean. “I’m sure he’s just excited to see me kick your butt.”

“Those are fighting words, Novak,” Dean said with a grin, setting the drinks and snacks down. He tried to take up his old seat on the other end of the couch but found Charlie sprawled there, munching on her own bag of chips, trying and failing to look nonchalant and innocent.

She even had the gall to throw him a lazy smile. “You going to sit down and play, or what, Winchester?”

Dean bit the inside of his lip to keep anything from spilling out and then took the only available seat next to Cas.

 

Jo arrived twenty minutes later, angry and sweaty. “At least one of you jerks could have called to tell me we weren’t meeting at the park anymore.”

Charlie grimaced as she stepped aside to let her in the house. “Sorry,” she offered lamely. “We sort of forgot.”

“Yeah, I sort of got that,” Jo replied, striding into the blessedly air conditioned house. She took a moment and stood directly under one of the vents. “Sweet Jesus, that’s nice.”

“Take your time,” Charlie told her, maneuvering around her to get back to the living room. “There’s sodas in the fridge and chips on the table. We’re Mortal Kombat-ing it up whenever you’re ready.”

“Who’s winning?” she asked.

Charlie’s offended scoff was enough of an answer.

“Got it. I’ll be there as soon as my skin stops feeling like it’s melting.” She held her arms out to the sides to soak up more of the air-con.

“Jo’s here,” Charlie announced, plopping herself down next to Dean and jostling him over a couple of inches to get him closer to Cas.

Dean shot her a warning look but she just smiled sweetly at him. Cas didn’t appear to notice anything, too caught up in trying to beat Sam again.

“Alright,” Jo said, finally entering the living room. “I’m ready to take my anger out on you jerks, video-game style.”

“I guess we should be grateful you’re using video games as a proxy,” Cas told her, trading his controller for his soda on the table. Sam had won a narrow victory in the last seconds of the round.

“Jeez, Novak,” Jo said, snatching up his discarded controller. “You always talk like you swallowed a dictionary.”

Dean opened his mouth to defend his best friend, but Cas beat him to it.

“Better than sounding like I just crawled out of the primordial ooze.”

Dean, Sam, and Charlie all laughed while Jo rolled her eyes.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Cas said, standing up. “My beverage needs to be replenished.”

“’Beverage,’ Jesus,” Jo muttered.

Dean snorted out a laugh, pretty sure he was the only one that quite understood what a smartass Cas really was. He only had a moment to reflect upon it before Charlie was pushing him up to join Cas.

“Uh, yeah, me too,” he lied, having lost the silent but heated fight with Charlie. He trailed Cas to the kitchen, rubbing the back of his neck.

Cas pulled two sodas out of the fridge and handed one to Dean, fingers brushing.

“I, uh, I like how you talk,” Dean told him, ears turning red.

“Thanks,” Cas gave him a small smile. “I didn’t actually swallow a dictionary, but Gabriel swears he saw me chewing on a thesaurus when I was little.”

Dean laughed. “Well, whatever you did is definitely working for you, buddy.”

Cas smiled at him and took a sip of his drink.

 

They ended up staying at Charlie’s until dinner. Jo’s mom called around six, berating her daughter for not informing her of the change in plans. After that, Cas, Dean, and Sam thought it would be best to stave off any angry reprimands by going home on their own.

“So why’d you chicken out?” Sam said once they had parted ways with Cas.

“I didn’t chicken out,” Dean told him, wiping the thin sheen of sweat from his forehead. The lateness of the day had done nothing to diminish the heat.

“Did, too,” Sam replied. “Unless you asked him when you two went to the kitchen for like _twenty_ minutes. Ew, were you two making out?”

“No, we were not making out. Just mind your own business,” Dean told him.

“Then what were you two doing in there for so long _all by yourselves_.” Sam smirked as he skipped along beside Dean.

“Uh, talking?” Dean said like it was obvious. “We are friends, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said. “But I also know you want to be _more_ ,” he sang the last word and started making kissing noises.

“Shut up, Samantha,” Dean said, taking a swipe at him.

Sam dodged and took off at a run, Dean chasing after him, all thoughts of the unbearable heat left behind.


	2. Chapter 2

The final week of school passed in a haze of heat, finals, and (for Dean) the crushing anxiety of trying to work up the courage to ask Cas to the dance properly.

“Have you done it yet?” Charlie asked every time she saw him.

Dean would just grunt out a negative and ignore her attempts at refraining from rolling her eyes.

And then it was their last day of school. The dance would start twenty minutes after the final bell rang. Dean could practically feel the passing of each second in the beating of his heart.

“So, you going to ask him today?” Sam asked him around a mouthful of pancakes.

Dean felt a little too queasy to eat his own.

“Leave your brother alone, Sam,” their mom, Mary, said, coming into the kitchen. “And what have I told you about talking with your mouth full?”

Sam looked away sheepishly, swallowing and mumbling out, “Sorry.”

“Better,” she said. “Now hurry up and finish eating. You have to get to school early today for your field trip.”

That seemed to bring some life back into Dean and he smirked at his little brother. “The fifth grade field trip to the woods,” he said. “Watch out for the monster.”

It was Sam’s turn to go a little green around the gills.

“Dean,” Mary admonished. “Stop scaring your brother.” She turned to Sam. “There’s no such thing as the monster in the woods. It’s just a stupid story made up by teenagers to scare their little brothers. You have nothing to worry about, sweetie.” She walked over and bent down to place a kiss atop his messy hair. “You’re going to have a great time today, promise.”

“Yeah, Sam,” Dean said. “I mean, you’re too scrawny for the monster to want to eat you anyway. Unless he’s looking for an appetizer.”

“ _Mom_!” Sam whined.

“Dean,” Mary said, subtle threat in her voice. “Do you want to go to the dance today?”

Dean swallowed, practically audible, and shut up. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Good.” She turned to the coffee pot and began filling a dark blue traveling mug. “Now both of you go and finish getting ready. We’re leaving in five.”

Dean looked down at his plate. He had taken maybe three bites before the syrupy sweetness had gotten to him. They now churned unpleasantly in his gut. He dumped the rest in the trash.

Sam followed Dean out of the kitchen, also apparently done with his breakfast even though he’d only eaten half.

Dean sighed. “You know I’m just messing with you, right? There’s no such thing as the monster in the woods.”

“It is real,” Sam insisted. “Andy’s brother said he saw it.”

“Andy’s brother?” Dean scoffed. “Dude’s a total weirdo. Don’t listen to him.”

“But he _saw it,_ Dean!”

“He probably saw some asshole high school students.”

“He said it had yellow eyes.”

“You’ve never heard of a costume?”

Sam stomped his foot, angry that Dean refused to believe him.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean told him, grabbing his shoulder and giving him a brotherly jostle. “You’re going to have fun today. Promise. Besides, even if the monster is real, which he’s not, he only comes out in the dark. You’ll be fine.”

“I guess you’re right,” Sam finally admitted.

“Of course I’m right,” Dean said. “I’m always right.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Whatever, jerk.”

“Bitch,” Dean grinned.

 

Dean saw Cas standing in front of their shared first period class. He hitched his backpack up higher on his shoulders and let out a sigh.

“Pondering your existence or staring at his ass?”

Dean jumped at Charlie’s remarks, not having seen or heard her coming. “Shut up,” he grumbled.

“Ah, still trying to muster the courage.” She nodded sagely. “I say, just march up and do it. Easy as ripping off a bandaid.”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“You better do it before he looks over here and sees us talking about him.”

“Who are we talking about?” Jo had come up behind them.

“Jesus,” Dean jumped again. “Are you guys trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Whoa, there, Dean-o,” Jo said. “What’s got you so jumpy? It’s the last day, it’s not like there’s a test you forgot to cram for.”

“Nothing’s got me jumpy,” Dean said. “My god, you guys are such assholes.” He stalked off to go talk to Cas.

Charlie held Jo back until it was clear Dean wasn’t going to be asking any questions. Dean ignored Charlie’s look of disappointment. It was pretty easy to do with Cas smiling at him like he was.

 

It was fourth period when it happened. An episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy was playing in the background, but most of the students were wandering between desks, trading yearbooks for classmates to sign. Dean, Cas, and Jo were sitting in the corner furthest from the door when Meg walked over to them.

“So, Clarence,” she purred, handing him her yearbook and making sure their fingers brushed together. “You never gave me a solid answer on the dance.”

“Oh, sorry,” Cas said, quickly scribbling a, _Have a great summer,_ near all the others. “I am very flattered, but I’m going with Dean.”

Dean, who had been determinedly trying to ignore the whole proceeding, perked up at that, face flushing red.

Meg laughed. “You’re going with Dean?”

Cas nodded and handed her yearbook back to her.

“Uh, Cas,” Jo piped up. “I think Meg is talking about a date.”

Cas furrowed his brow. “So am I.”

“You are?” Meg, Jo, and Dean all asked.

Cas looked over to Dean. “Aren’t we?”

“Hell yes we are!” Dean exclaimed, then blushed even harder when he realized his outburst had brought the attention of everyone else. He awkwardly cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, Meg, we are. So you can leave now, thanks.”

Meg let out a huff, turned on her heel and left.

“Something you forgot to share with the class?” Jo asked, staring between Dean and Cas expectantly.

Cas rubbed the back of his neck. “No?” he tried.

“Oh, hell no,” Jo said. “Spill. When did you two decide to go to the dance _together_?”

“Last week,” Cas mumbled.

“A week?” Jo shouted.

“Jo, shut up,” Dean told her, glancing back over his shoulder to see that only about half of the class had gone back to their own drama, the other half halfheartedly pretending they weren’t listening in.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “You two have been dating for a week and decided not to tell me? I’m your best friend, you jerks!” She punched both of them in the shoulder.

“Technically today will be our first date,” Cas said.

“Don’t you start with your smarty pants answers,” Jo threatened with a wagging finger in his face.

“Jo, just drop it,” Dean said.

Jo narrowed her eyes and looked back and forth between them. “Did Charlie know?” she finally asked.

“I didn’t tell her,” Cas said.

“She definitely didn’t know,” Dean assured her. He was tempted to add that _he_ hadn’t even known, but he thought that conversation might be better between just Dean and Cas.

Jo opened her mouth to continue her interrogation, but thankfully the bell rang out signaling the start of lunch.

“Sorry, Jo, gotta go,” Dean said, grabbing Cas by his upper arm and practically dragging him out of his seat.

“Wait!” she called after them, trying to gather up all of her things to follow them.

But Dean ignored her, throwing a quick goodbye to his teacher as he pulled a perfectly willing Cas along behind him. He didn’t stop until he made it to the boy’s locker room, knowing it would be empty since their entire day was being spent signing yearbooks and not running the mile.

“So,” Dean said, dropping his grip on Cas, suddenly unable to meet his best friend’s eyes. “We’re going to the dance? _Together_ together?”

Cas rubbed the back of his neck again. “I know I sort of sprung it on you,” he said. “But I figured it was the only way to make sure that Meg didn’t try to ask me to dance later on. I panicked.”

“So, it’s a fake date,” Dean said, feeling his heart drop to the soles of his shoes.

Cas cleared his throat. “I suppose,” he replied.

“Right,” Dean said. “Cool, yeah. I can do that.”

“Are you sure?” Cas asked. “It is extremely last minute.”

Dean managed to finally meet Cas’ eyes. He forced a smile onto his face. “’Course, dude. You’re my best friend. You deserve way better than Meg trying to put the moves on you on the dance floor. Pretty sure she sharpens her nails into claws.”

Cas snorted and returned Dean’s smile, although Dean suspected his was genuine.

Dean took a deep breath and let it out. He could do this. He could push the total, soul crushing agony he was feeling way deep down, bury it under ten pounds of denial and his usual cocky grin. He gave Cas a pat on the shoulder. “Good talk,” he said. “But now I gotta pee. Save me a spot in the snack line?”

“I’ll go one further, and buy your snack as a thank you.”

Dean laughed and pushed Cas towards the door, needing him to leave before he lost it. He could bury it, he was going to bury it, he was going to be a good friend. But he could feel tears threatening to sting his eyes and he needed Cas gone before they made their grand entrance.

Thankfully, Cas left without further prompting. Dean let out all of the air in his lungs and banged his head against the lockers behind him. “Suck it up, Winchester,” he told himself. “You got this.”

He rubbed the tears out of his eyes with his palms.

 

Ten minutes later, Dean found his friends at their usual spot in the cafeteria and the sight nearly gave him a heart attack.

Charlie was hugging an awkward but pleased looking Cas.

Charlie.

She was going to ruin everything.

He came within earshot just in time to hear her say, “So how did he finally ask? He’s been so annoying trying to figure out the perfect way to do it! Even though I told him, dude, you just gotta do it, he’s totally going to say yes! And I was obviously, totally right since you two are going to the dance now!”

Dean froze, and as if Cas sensed his presence, his eyes swung over and landed right on him like two huge spotlights.

 Dean felt hot, his mouth dry, his palms sweaty. He spun around and tried to make it look like he wasn’t running away. His resolve only lasted a couple of seconds before he broke out into a full sprint, unsure of where exactly he was going, but knowing he was going to get there as fast as he could. Contingency plans began popping up in his head. He could move. He _had_ to move. He could change his name. Robert Plant. No, too obvious. Ted Nugent? Nope, just as bad. He needed something random, something that couldn’t be tied back to Dean Winchester: biggest loser on the planet.

He was just trying to decide whether he could pass as a Hector when a hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around.

“Heya, Cas,” he said, cursing himself for forgetting that Cas was the fastest kid in their grade.

“Dean,” Cas responded, his voice lower and more gravely than normal. And boy did Dean have mixed feelings about that. “Did you not hear me calling to you?”

“Can’t say I did,’ he replied, and he wasn’t even lying. The heartbeat pounding in his ears had drowned out all other sound. He swiped a hand across his forehead to hopefully remove the beads of sweat. Dean wasn’t eactly out of shape, but that was definitely the fastest he’d ever run in his life. “And look, about what Charlie said,” Dean started, trying for damage control now that he’d been caught.

“I want to go to the dance with you,” Cas cut him off. He was slightly out of breath, too. Though, whether it was from physical exertion or nerves, was unclear.

Dean’s jaw dropped open. “What?”

“As a date,” Cas added. “I want to go with you as a date. A real one.”

He must be hallucinating. Maybe he had tripped and hit his head? Maybe he had tripped and _died_ and this was heaven? “What?” he asked again, oh so eloquently.

“You heard me,” Cas said.

“Okay, but say it again, because I think I’m either hallucinating or dead.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

“I’m dramatic?” Dean asked, scandalized and with a squeak in his voice.

“Yes,” Cas replied. “Very. Charlie told me you’ve been trying to ask me to the dance since it was announced.”

“That doesn’t make me dramatic,” Dean argued. “That makes me pathetic.”

Cas squinted and tilted his head. “I don’t think that’s a step up.”

“I didn’t say it was.” Dean shrugged and looked anywhere but at Cas. Was he really trying to prove he was pathetic? “Just, you know, get your adjectives right.”

Cas shook his head, albeit fondly. “Dean, I would like to go with you to the dance,” he tried again. “Would you like to go with me?”

“Okay,” Dean said. “But just so we’re clear, I’m not hallucinating?”

Cas heaved an exaggerated sigh. “No, Dean, you are not hallucinating.”

Dean opened his mouth but Cas cut him off.

“You’re not dead either.” Cas shot him a grin. “You are dramatic, though. And pathetic, at your own admission. And I would really like you to answer my question, because I’m starting to get nervous.”

“What que—“ Dean smacked himself in the forehead. “Oh my god, duh, dude. Yes. Yes, I want to go to the dance with you.”

Cas’ face broke out into a huge, gummy smile. Dean couldn’t stop himself from responding in kind, not that he’d want to.

They began a slow trek back to the cafeteria, hands brushing on every other swing, both too unsure of where the line was now to make a move.

“So, uh,” Dean started, “let’s not tell Charlie about this.”

Cas snorted. “Okay, but you’re coming up with the excuse for why you ran away like you spotted a velociraptor in the kitchen.”

Dean shoved him playfully. “I never should have told you about that.”

Cas just grinned. “I actually find it rather endearing that you’re afraid of commercial kitchens now.”

“I’m not afraid of _kitchens_ , Cas, _god_.” He fought his blush. “That was one of the most terrifying scenes in cinematic history, you can’t tell me it wasn’t! They can _open doors_!”

“Oh, so you’re afraid of doors?”

Dean couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face, though he did try. “You are such an asshole.”

Cas grinned. “Yeah, but you like me anyway.”

Dean shrugged. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

Cas finally grabbed Dean’s hand, entwining their fingers. Dean tried ot pretend like he wasn’t having a heart attack.

“You’re the dramatic one in this relationship, remember?” Cas told him.

 _Relationship._ God, it gave him the good kind of chills. Dean was _swooning_ over a word. He was definitely correct in his previous assertion of pathetic.

“Let’s just go eat lunch before the bell rings,” Dean said, forgetting to try and one-up Cas in light of the fact that his heart currently felt like it was being filled with helium.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean and Cas didn’t have fifth or sixth period together, so they were forced to part after the lunch bell rang, Dean following Charlie, Cas following Jo.

“Alright, so spill,” Charlie said once they sat down in their seats. “Why’d you freak earlier? And why did Jo tell me you’ve been dating for a week?”

Dean sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Can’t you just be happy with the fact that we’re dating? And stop bugging me about it now, please?”

Charlie narrowed her eyes. “Something’s fishy about this whole thing,” she said. “But as long as you two are happy I guess I can drop it.”

“Thank you.”

“Until after the dance.”

Dean banged his head on his desk.

 

Dean and Cas managed a glimpse of each other during passing period. They both smiled sheepishly at each other from across the hall as Jo and Charlie switched places.

“You just had to go and blab to Charlie,” Dean said once Jo fell into step next to him.

“Um, I’m not sorry,” she replied. “I still can’t believe you two managed to keep your dating a secret for a whole week.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “We weren’t _keeping it a secret_ ,” Dean said. “We just… didn’t tell anyone. Not a big deal. And like Cas said, the dance is going to be our first date. And can we please stop talking about this? Charlie already grilled me all through last period.”

“Yeah, so? I did the same to Cas. He wouldn’t crack, but you will. You’re soft.”

“Ugh,” Dean groaned. “I regret ever befriending you. You and Charlie both.”

“Please, Winchester, you love us.” Jo flipped some hair off her shoulder with a self-satisfied huff.

Dean sighed and prepared himself for a repeat of last period, although knowing Jo, with much more swearing and punches.

He wasn’t wrong.

 

And then finally, _finally_ , it was the dance.

He rushed to the bathroom as soon as the bell rang, announcing the end of school and the start of the dance, the start of his _date_. Jo snickered behind him the whole way.

“Going to go and make yourself look pretty, Winchester?”

He wanted to reply with a _Hard to improve on perfection, Harvelle_ , but he could feel his heart in his throat and he really _was_ going to try and make himself look more presentable because Cas deserved him at his best. So he just slammed the door of the boy’s bathroom in Jo’s face and walked over to the mirrors above the sinks.

He splashed some water on his face and then used his wet hands to try and get his hair to lay neatly along the part. He checked his teeth for any leftover food, straightened his nicest button down shirt that he had optimistically decided on that morning and finally dug around in his backpack for some gum. It’s not like he was _expecting_ anything, it’s just that he was really _hoping_. And hey, his chances were decent. Besides, even if there was no kissing tonight, it was just common decency to have nice breath when in close quarters. And dates usually meant close quarters, right?

He exited the bathroom, bracing himself for Jo’s barrage of remarks, but it seemed she had grown a conscience in the past two minutes because she just smiled at him. “You clean up nice, Dean-o.”

Dean just shrugged and mumbled an awkward thanks.

“Don’t get used it,” Jo told him. “You just sort of look like you’re about to puke and even I’m not that heartless.”

“I’m fine,” Dean told her. “Just…” He had a million things he wanted to say. _Just… I really like him. Just… I’m terrified of messing this up. Just… I think this might be the beginning of the rest of my life_. But he definitely couldn’t say any of that to Jo. He internally shuddered at the thought of giving her that much ammo. It’d be like telling Sam.

“Let’s go, lover boy. The dance started five minutes ago and I’m sure your prince charming is searching high and low.”

“I don’t appreciate being cast as the princess in this scenario you’ve got going,” Dean told her, falling into step next to her as they made their way to the gym along with fellow stragglers. Dean was a little embarrassed to see that the vast majority of people they were walking with were girls who had touched up their makeup. Oh god, he _was_ the princess.

“Too bad,” she said with a shrug. “My niceness can only go so far.”

Dean huffed a laugh. “I guess I appreciate the attempt.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The gym had been decorated with balloons and streamers in red and white, photo booth in one corner, drinks and snacks in another, game booths spanning the far wall like some sort of carnival. It looked decent, even if the ever present scent of B.O. still lingered in the air, like a sign seen from the corner of your eye. It was definitely still the gym, no matter how much glitter they doused it in.

They were handed two tickets upon their arrival, one as a pizza voucher, the other for a raffle to win one of the door prizes. Spice Girls played over the stereo system and Dean caught Jo nodding along even though she claimed to not like the band. (Charlie had definitely accidentally let slip that she and Jo had choreographed a whole dance routine to “If You Wanna Be My Lover.”)

Dean looked around and spotted Cas and Charlie across the way. Charlie had her hands on Cas’ shoulders, obviously trying to get him to dance along. Dean grinned and led Jo through the crowd of girls dancing and singing along.

“Hey guys,” Dean said, loud enough to be heard over the music, wiping his sweaty palms off on his jeans.

Charlie dropped her attempts at getting Cas to understand rhythm.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said. There had definitely been an attempt made at flattening his hair, but Dean was glad it had failed. He liked that Cas always looked a little windswept. It added to the whole head in the clouds thing he had going for him.

“Hey, Cas.” Dean bit his lip as he looked him up and down. He looked exactly the same as he had at lunch, but it was different, somehow. Better.

“And that’s our cue to leave,” Charlie chirped, grabbing Jo by the arm and dragging her away. “Have fun!” she called over her shoulder as the two of them disappeared into the throng of dancers.

And then it was just Dean and Cas. On a date.

“So,” Dean started, drawing the word out a little in the hopes that the rest of the sentence would appear.

“Charlie tried teaching me to dance,” Cas said, nearly shouting to be heard over the music and the girls singing along. “I don’t think it worked out so well. She told me I needed to ‘loosen up.’” He made air quotes with his fingers and everything.

Dean just shrugged. “Probably this lame music,” he yelled back.

“Dean, I know you secretly like the Spice Girls—“

Dean immediately smacked his hand over Cas’ mouth. “Hey, you swore!”

Cas just raised his eyebrows and Dean noticed how close they had gotten to each other. Not that they hadn’t ever had a friendly tussle like this before, but it was a little different now that Dean was allowed to fantasize about the lips currently pressed against his palm pressing against his lips. He dropped his hand quickly and took a step back, jostling a group of dancers behind him. But Cas stepped right back into his personal space.

“I’m thinking the music wasn’t the problem,” Cas said.

“No?” Dean asked, the squeak in his voice embarrassingly audible over the music.

Cas shook his head.

Then, what—uh—“ Dean cleared his throat and purposely lowered his voice. “What do you think the problem was?”

“The instructor.”

“Charlie was the problem?”

“Nothing against her, of course,” Cas said and took another step closer to Deean. “I believe I’m a difficult student when it comes to this sort of thing.”

“Maybe you’re the problem then,” Dean laughed. The crowed of dancers around them were jumping up and down to the beat, jostling Dean and Cas closer together, the space they had carved out for themselves being chipped away to the beat of the zig-ah-zig-ah’s.

Cas just shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“Oh?” Dean asked.

Cas nodded. “You’ll have to try and teach me.”

Dean gave him a hesitant smile. “We could try that.”

Cas nodded again and stepped even closer to Dean deliberately. There was hardly any space between them. Dean was sure that if they attended Catholic school instead of an underfunded public school there would be a nun yelling at them to keep room for Jesus between them.

“There’s just, uh, one more problem, then.” Dean hardly had to raise his voice to be heard over the music, the two of them were so close.

“What’s that?” Cas asked.

Dean could smell the shampoo in his hair. Vanilla and cherry. It made him smell like pie. “I—uh—I don’t know how to dance either.” He looked down at his feet sheepishly.

Cas started to laugh, Dean joining in a moment later.

“Well then, a dance was a great idea for our first date, wasn’t it?” Cas’ smile was wide and gummy, his eyes bright with mirth.

Dean ran a hand through the back of his hair and let out one last laugh. “Guess not. Maybe we can just wait for a slow song. All you’ve gotta do to those is just, like, sort of hug and sway to the music.”

“Good thinking,” Cas told him with a sage nod. “For now,” he added, taking a step back and finally allowing Dean space to breathe (though Dean had honestly forgotten his need of oxygen), “maybe we should get some pizza before they run out of all of the pepperoni.”

“Oh my god, I didn’t even think of that,” Dean said, horrified. He grabbed Cas by the hand and began dragging him over to the pizza line, jostling and bumping into the crowds of dancers as they went.

After the pizza, Dean and Cas spent a while playing some of the games set up along the back wall. Dean managed to knock over a pyramid of bottles on his first try, grinning with pride as he handed Cas the cheap teddy bear he’d won for his efforts. Cas accepted it with a blushing smile, handed over a dollar to their P.E. teacher for his own try and did the same. Dean mumbled a blushing thanks as Cas gave him his own teddy bear.

Next, Dean pulled Cas over to the photo area he had just spotted, which was really just a cheesy backdrop with streamers and a teacher with a polaroid. They posed for two pictures anyway, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, huge grins plastered across their faces. Dean would never admit it, but he was definitely going to frame his as soon as he got home. And with the reverent way Cas was looking at his own picture, Dean thought he might not be the only one.

Dean could feel his heart swelling in his chest.

And then a slow song came on.

Both of them froze and looked at each other before quickly looking away.

“So, do you, uh,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck and scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground. “Do you wanna dance?”

“Yes,” Cas replied simply and with a smile.

They both chanced a look at each other, relieved and emboldened by seeing the blush on the other’s face.

Dean was the first to reach out and he grabbed Cas’ hand, guiding him to be among the other handful of couples dancing in the middle of the room.

“So now we… hug?” Cas asked, head slightly tilted as he squinted at the other couples around them.

“I think so,” Dean said. He put his hands on Cas’ hips, pulling him forward slightly as Cas slid his own arms around Dean’s shoulders. “Is this okay?” Dean asked softly.

Cas nodded and breathed out a, “Yeah.”

Dean’s heart was racing. He couldn’t quite believe that this was real, that he was allowed to do this, to have Cas this close. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this good.

“Are we supposed to move now?” Cas asked, the words tickling Dean’s face.

“Huh?” Dean had been momentarily paralyzed by their proximity. “Oh, yeah. Um…” Dean glanced around at everyone else to see exactly what they should be doing. “I guess we should just, uh…” He trailed off and began to slowly rock back and forth to the slow beat of the music, helping Cas along with his hands on Cas’ hips. They definitely weren’t going to win any dance competitions any time soon, but every once in a while their movements would bring them even closer together and Dean’s heart would skip a beat. And with the way Cas was beaming at him, he figured the feeling was probably mutual.

“You know,” Cas said softly, sounding a little embarrassed. “I, um,” he cleared his throat. “When I told Meg we were going to the dance together… I didn’t think I was lying.” His head was turned away from Dean, staring resolutely at the couple dancing to their right, but his grip around Dean had tightened with nerves.

“What?” Dean asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Well…” Cas chanced a glance into Dean’s eyes before looking away again. “Never mind, it’s stupid, don’t listen to me. Forget everything I just said.”

“No, hey,” Dean said, trying to angle himself in such a way that Cas would have to make eye contact again, but though they were still closely dancing that just seemed to make it easier for Cas to keep his face turned away. “What do you mean?”

Cas sighed. “When I told you I’d rather go with you. I—I thought that maybe it was a date. Well, no, actually I didn’t think that’s what it was until after at Charlie’s.”

“What happened at Charlie’s?”

Pink stole over Cas’ cheeks. “You kept, I don’t know, bumping into me and sitting extra close and—and then you told me you liked the way I talk and I just…” His face was practically glowing by now, but Dean didn’t think it was something that Cas had to be embarrassed about. Especially not with the way it made Dean feel like he was floating off the ground.

The song they were dancing to ended and another began, the tempo slightly faster, but still slow enough for them to continue dancing.

Cas finally looked up at Dean. “I thought that maybe I had lucked out and accidentally managed to ask you to the dance without realizing it. Which was great because I was trying to figure out how I was going to ask you anyway, and…” He looked down again. “And then you looked utterly confused when I told Meg and I realized—“

Dean squeezed Cas’ sides where his hands rested. “Man, when you told me it was a fake date it felt like a sucker punch.”

Cas’ head shot up at that. “ _You_ were the one that said it was a fake date.”

“Yeah, after you said that you only said it to throw Meg off!”

“Yes,” Cas admitted. “Because you sounded so surprised that we had a date I realized I had been mistaken all along.”

Dean opened his mouth to give a retort but nothing came out. He sighed. “I was so freakin’ happy when you said we had a date.” He laughed. “Oh my god, you know what this means?”

“We’re both pathetic?” Cas suggested.

Dean snorted. “Well, yeah, probably, but dude!” He nudged him. “You’ve been dating me longer than I’ve been dating you! That’s just not fair.”

Cas grinned. “This has been a very good week for me.”

“Man,” Dean groaned. “Mine was horrible. I was a nervous wreck the whole time. Ask Charlie.”

Cas nodded. “She’s already confirmed it.”

They both laughed, pulling each other closer until their noses were practically touching.

The second song came to a close far too early for either of their liking. They remained in their embrace well into the new, fast paced song, just smiling.

“I’m having a very good time,” Cas said.

“Me, too.” Dean mustered the courage to lean his forehead against Cas’. “A really, really good time.”

They stayed like that until a rather exuberant group of dancers bumped and jostled them out of their illusion of privacy.

“Perhaps we should make room for those who are actually dancing.” Cas’ fingers were playing with the short hair on the back of Dean’s head.

“Yeah,” Dean breathed out. “Yeah. We can go sit?”

Cas nodded his agreement and they finally broke apart, Dean making sure to take Cas’ hand as they weaved through the raucous groups of preteens and barely teens.

Most people were dancing or playing games, so they didn’t have a problem finding seats at the tables set up near the pizza station. Dean scooted his chair closer once they had sat, finding that once he had tasted close proximity with Cas he never wanted to let it go. The dance ended with them still sequestered in their own private world, huddled together, whispering and laughing.

They didn’t even notice the music had stopped until Charlie and Jo came over to tell them they better leave or get volunteered for clean-up duty.

“Did you two have a good time?” Cas asked the girls, still gripping Dean’s hand tightly as they made their way outside to wait for their parents to pick them up.

“Not as good as you two,” Jo snickered, not stopping even after Charlie elbowed her in the side.

“We had a good time, thanks, Cas,” Charlie said. “And don’t listen to Jo, she had a _very_ nice time dancing with Vic—“

Jo slapped a hand over Charlie’s mouth. “Shut up!” she hissed.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean said, stepping in front and bring his little group of friends to a halt. “You and _Victor_? As in _Henriksen_?”

“None of your business,” Jo told them.

“Yes,” Charlie confirmed, squirming out of Jo’s hold. “She said that if you two managed to get your shit together, then she could ask Victor to dance, no problem, and so she marched right up to him and said, ‘Hey, we’re dancing, let’s go.’”

“Traitor,” Jo told her through gritted teeth.

“It was _adorable_ ,” Charlie said. “He just followed her around like a lost puppy after that.”

“Congratulations,” Cas told her.

“Aw, Jo’s got a _boyfriend_ ,” Dean singsonged.

“Shut up, Winchester,” she said, deep blush staining her cheeks. “I could say the same to you.”

“Go for it,” Dean said with a grin. He let go of Cas’ hand to wrap his arm around Cas’ shoulders instead.

“Ugh,” Jo said. “You two were gross before, now you’re going to be unbearable.”

“Lighten up, Jo,” Charlie said. “Just because Victor said his family was going on vacation for the rest of the summer is no reason to take your bad mood out on the sickeningly cute couple in front of you.”

Dean blushed. “We’re not _sickeningly_ cute,” he insisted.

“Nope,” Cas agreed. “We’re the perfect amount of cute.”

Dean grinned and tightened his grip around Cas. 

 

Charlie and Jo were picked up promptly, but Dean and Cas weren’t exactly complaining that they had to wait. Even the unbearable heat wasn’t going to diminish their happy bubble. In fact, the only time they felt like complaining was when Cas’ older brother, Gabe, honked the horn of his old Lincoln Continental to get their attention.

“Come on, boys,” he called to them through the open window. “The pimpmobile awaits!”

“Please stop calling your car that,” Cas said, walking up to the car and pulling Dean along behind him.

“No can do, broski. She likes her name, don’t you girl?” He patted the dashboard fondly. “Now get your butts in here, I don’t have all day.”

Dean and Cas exchanged a confused look.

Gabriel rolled his eyes at them. “Dean-o, your mom called and asked if I would be so kind as to fetch you. And I, being the kind gentleman that I am, readily agreed. So get your cutie patooties in the car.”

Dean shrugged and got in the back seat and, after a moment’s indecision, Cas pushed him further in and followed.

“What is this, a limo service?” Gabriel asked, turning in his seat to face them.

“I believe a limo service would have a much less embarrassing driver,” Cas told him.

“That hurts, Cassie,” Gabriel said, placing a hand over his heart. “It hurts right here.”

Cas just rolled his eyes.

“Dean-o gets it,” Gabriel went on. “Us big brothers have to stick together, am I right?” He turned a little more to face Dean and caught sight of Dean and Cas’ entwined hands. His mouth dropped open and he scrambled around in his seat until he was leaning over it to point at their hands. “J’accuse!” he shouted.

“Uh, sorry, Gabe. Kinda gotta take Cas’ side now,” Dean told him, lifting their clasped hands as if to prove his point.

“You’re quitting the BBC?” Gabe demanded.

“I’m quitting the what now?” Dean asked.

“The Big Brother’s Club, you big dummy. It’s alright, I forgive you,” he said, all very quickly. And with the same grin on his face and a new menacing twinkle in his eye that promised violence, he continued, “But if you break his heart I’ll rip yours out.”

Cas wiped a hand down his face as Dean audibly gulped.

“Gabriel,” Cas groaned.

“What?” Gabe asked, all innocence again. “Threatening the new beau is like rule number three in the BBC handbook.”

Cas turned to Dean. “I apologize for my Neanderthal of a brother.”

But Dean just shrugged it off. “It’s cool. I actually did get the memo on that one.”

Gabe huffed. “Alright fine, you’re back in the club,” he told Dean. “But you’re bringing the snacks for the next meeting.” He turned back around in his seat. “And no canoodling back there, you hear me? Cassie is the baby of the family and I will not have him treated like some common tart.”

Cas turned a deep shade of red. “Please just drive,” he grit out, shrinking down in his seat and covering his face with the hand not being squeezed by Dean’s.

Finally, Gabe obliged and pulled out onto the now mostly deserted street.

Dean and Cas avoided each other’s eyes as they drove past house after house, Cas’ face still glowing and Dean too afraid to make any sort of move after Gabe’s threat. It went on like that until they pulled up to Dean’s shabby but well-kept house. 

“Uh, thanks for the ride, Gabe,” Dean said, unbuckling his seatbelt.

“No problem, kiddo,” Gabe replied easily.

But Dean still hung back awkwardly, hand hovering over the door handle. He kept glancing from the door to Cas.

Cas squinted back before his eyes flew wide with understanding.

“I’ll walk you to your door,” he said.

“Five minutes!” Gabe called as Cas and Dean both got out of the car. “I’ve got better places to be!”

Cas rolled his eyes. “I’m just walking him to his door.”

“Yeah, and I know what that’s code for. Wasn’t born yesterday, baby bro.” Gabe threw them a wink.

Dean and Cas both turned red at that, stumbling as they made their way up to Dean’s door.

“I had a very good time today,” Cas told him once they were standing on the porch in the light of the barely setting sun.

“Me too,” Dean said. Then he cleared his throat, suddenly far more nervous than he’d been all day, even more than when he’d been trying to ask Cas to the dance in the first place. His mouth felt suddenly dry and he wished he could take his hand back from Cas, just for a second, to wipe it off on his jeans.

He finally looked up and saw Cas’ blue gaze locked on him. Time seemed to stop as they stared at each other. Dean wanted to close the distance but couldn’t bring himself to move. He could hear his heart beat pounding in his ears, wondered if Cas could hear it, too.

Cas took a step forward and Dean gulped. He felt like he was living in a cartoon and his heart was about to explode out of his chest any second now. It was inevitable. He just hoped he got to kiss Cas before he actually dropped dead from the suspense.

Cas leaned forward, and Dean managed to follow suit. This was it, it was really going to happen, he was going to _kiss Cas!_

Dean brought his hand up and slid it along Cas’ cheek, fingertips just brushing into his hair. His other hand was now being crushed by Cas’ grip and it sent a thrill through him to know that Cas was just as excited as he was, just as nervous and desperate.

And then their lips were touching and for the second time that day Dean felt as if he had died and gone to heaven. Cas still smelled of the pepperoni pizza they had eaten earlier, and Dean could almost taste it on those soft, plush lips.

Dean moved his hand from Cas’ cheek to the back of his head, and brought them even closer together. He wanted to live in this moment forever, pack up his stuff and just move right in.

Then Cas’ hand was at his back, and pulling until their chests were flush together and Dean gasped from how good it felt to be pressed up against his best friend, even in this stifling heat he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

_Beep beep!_

The rest of the world came back into focus and Dean realized they had been making out on his porch for at least the five minutes Gabriel had allotted them.

“I’m going to kill him,” Cas grumbled.

“You could do that,” Dean said. “Or you could kiss me some more.”

Cas grinned and Dean took that as his cue to lean in again.

_Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beeeeeep!_

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Dean asked as they broke apart.

Cas nodded, eyes closed as if still savoring the kiss.

“Your place or mine?”

_Beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!_

“Yours,” Cas said. “Definitely yours.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dean practically floated into the kitchen, head held high, heart still soaring. He took a seat next to Sam at the table and it was practically a full minute before he realized something was off with his little brother.

He turned to get a better look and deflated. Sam was hunched in on himself, eyes rimmed red as if he had been crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Dean asked.

Sam sniffed and wiped his nose. “Nothing,” he said.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean said. “You’re a horrible liar. What’s up?”

Sam opened his mouth to respond when their mother walked in. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with the principal,” she announced.

Dean turned his quizzical look to her. “Why?” Surely Sam didn’t get in trouble on the last day. Dean couldn’t even remember a time Sam had been in trouble, period.

“Some high schoolers decided to play a prank on Sam’s class today,” she replied.

Dean furrowed his brow and turned to Sam. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t high schoolers, mom!” Sam shouted, ignoring Dean’s question completely. “It was real, I swear!”

Their mom sighed. “Sweetie, there’s no such thing as the monster in the woods. It’s just made up nonsense.”

The monster in the woods? Dean turned back to his mom to demand some details but Sam cut him off.

“It isn’t nonsense! It was real! I saw it!” Sam fumed.

“Sam, you saw three delinquents dressed up in a costume and a mask,” their mother countered, not unkindly.

Well, that took care of the details.

“It wasn’t a costume!”

“Sam—“

“It _wasn’t_!” Sam demanded. Dean would have called him petulant but the frustration and sincerity in Sam’s voice stopped him.

Mary sighed and rounded on her eldest son. “You see what all of your teasing has done, Dean?”

“What? _Me_?” Dean said, pointing to himself as if another Dean was going to appear out of thin air. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You teased your little brother about that stupid monster and now he thinks it’s real.”

“It _is_ real!” Sam demanded, angry to be talked about as if he wasn’t even there. “We all saw it! Me, Jake, Andy, and Ava! It’s _real_!”

Mary shot Dean a sharp look as if to say, _See?_

Sam, upon seeing this, threw his hands up and let out a shout of frustration.

“Sammy,” Dean started. “I was just joking about that monster, dude. Mom’s right, it’s just nonsense.”

Sam’s face scrunched up and tears leaked out of his eyes. “I’m not lying,” he grit through his teeth. “It was real. I saw it.” And before anyone could try and talk him out of it, he stormed out of the kitchen. A few moments later they heard a door slam, presumably the one to Sam’s bedroom.

Mary turned a look of disapproval to Dean.

“I was just trying to help,” he said.

“Maybe you should have thought of that before freaking your brother out in the first place.”

“Well, I didn’t think some high school jerks were going to go and scare the crap out of him by dressing up as the dumb thing!” he said.

“Dean,” Mary warned.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry.” Dean cast his eyes down to the scratched kitchen table in front of him.

“Just,” Mary stopped and sighed again.

“Should I go check on him?” Dean asked, still not quite meeting her eye. He knew he wasn’t the best kid, but he hated it when his mom was mad at him. Ever since his dad left them (a thought that still made Dean’s blood boil), he had tried to stay as trouble free as possible so his mom could stop looking so sad and dejected. Of course, she tried to hide those moments as best as she could, but Dean still saw her red rimmed eyes morning after morning, the bags under her eyes getting more pronounced. He didn’t want to be the cause of any more stress for her.

Mary shook her head. “Let him cool off for a little while. He’s been through a lot today.”

Dean nodded and set his jaw. “Who were they, anyway?”

She shrugged. “The principal said that no one could find them, but they’re pretty sure it was some of the students that ditched today since they’re the only ones unaccounted for.”

“Well, what’s going to happen to them?” Dean demanded, already forming a list in his mind of what he’d like to do.

“Not much if they can’t prove anything,” Mary replied. “And it doesn’t look good for them being able to. Besides, Sam will be fine. No one was actually hurt, just shaken up.”

Dean crossed his arms tightly across his chest and leaned back in his chair. “It’s not fair,” he said petulantly.

Mary just crossed the kitchen to ruffle his hair. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said. Then, her eyes brightening, “Like why I saw Gabriel’s car pull up about five minutes before you actually came inside?”

Dean flushed red from the tips of his ears all the way down to his toes. “What?” his voice squeaked on the word. He cleared his throat. “Um, no—no reason. Just, um, just making plans with Cas to hang out tomorrow.”

“And that took five minutes?” If Dean could have mustered the courage to look at his mom, he would have seen a knowing smirk gracing her lovely features.

“Uh-huh,” Dean said. “You, uh, know how Cas is with details.” He forced a laugh. “Loves to plan everything down to the last minute.”

Mary nodded. “So what are you two doing tomorrow then?”

“What are we doing?” Dean’s voice was back to squeaking. “Um, uh… just, you know… hanging out?” His voice went higher at the end, turning what should have been a statement into a question.

She nodded sagely again. “It took five minutes to come up with that plan?”

“Well, like I said, it’s Cas that’s good with the details.” He stood up abruptly and stretched. “And you know, it’s getting pretty late, mom, best be off to bed.” He faked a yawn.

“It’s barely seven o’clock, Dean,” Mary said with a smile. She let the silence drag on for a few moments as Dean stared like a deer in headlights. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she finally laughed. “I’m just glad you two had a good time.”

Dean let out the breath he had been holding and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Thanks, mom.” He tripped over his feet as he backed out of the kitchen.

It’s not like he didn’t want to tell his mom, because he _definitely_ did not want to keep it a secret. More like he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. It was just… just _way_ too awkward telling the woman that gave birth to him that he just had his first kiss turn into a make out session on her front porch. He just needed to wait until the feeling and memory of Cas’ lips pressing against his (a.k.a. the greatest moment of his life) to fade just a little before he could tell her without spontaneously combusting.

 

Dean knocked on Sam’s door. “Yo, Sammy, can I come in?” He knocked again when there was no answer and nudged the door open a sliver. “Sam?”

Sam sat at his desk chair, staring out his window at the sun setting over the woods, all purples and pinks with a hint of orange.

“Hey,” Dean said, pushing the door open all the way and leaning against the jamb. “You okay?”

Sam shrugged and continued staring out the window.

“Those guys were jerks, okay?” Dean said, taking a few steps into the room. “Don’t let them bug you.”

“It wasn’t guys from the high shool, Dean,” he said, and Dean could tell he was gritting his teeth even though his back was turned.

Dean barely kept in his snort, but didn’t bother hiding his eyeroll since Sam couldn’t see anyway. “Okay, well, I’d say don’t let the monster bother you, but if mom catches me telling you that thing is real again I’m pretty sure she’s going to ground me for the rest of the summer.”

Sam snorted that time, and finally spun around to face Dean. “And that would be a major tragedy,” he said. “How would you make out with your boyfriend?”

Dean blushed for what must have been the thousandth time that day. “Shut up.”

Sam’s face brightened for the first time that evening. “So it’s true? I can finally sing Dean and Cas, sitting in a tree, and it’ll be true?”

“Shut up,” Dean said again, but now Sam was practically cackling with glee.

“Should I start singing now, or wait until Cas is here?” Sam asked himself.

“And to think I came here to try and cheer you up,” Dean grumbled.

“Definitely wait until Cas gets here,” Sam continued as if he didn’t hear Dean at all. “It’ll be like a two-for-one. Do you think Gabe would come and help me out with it?”

A chill went down Dean’s spine. Who knew what kind of fresh hell Gabe would add to the mix. “You are forbidden from speaking with Gabriel,” he told Sam, slicing his hand through the air as if it made his pronouncement official.

Sam just dissolved into laughter at that.

“Bitch,” Dean said.

“Jerk,” Sam replied, still giggling.

Dean bit his lip to keep from smiling. At least he accomplished his mission to cheer Sam up. Now he felt like he could go and hide from his family in peace.


	5. Chapter 5

“Ugh, can you two stop being gross?” Jo said from where she was sprawled across his floor, directly under an air conditioning vent. Her blonde hair blew with the never ceasing air.

“Uh, can you stop inviting yourself over to my house?” Dean replied, tightening the arm he had slung around Cas’ shoulders.

“Fat chance, buddy. You’ve got central air conditioning.” She pointed up.

“So does Charlie,” Dean said. “Why can’t you guys go hang out at her place?”

“Because you promised you wouldn’t ditch us all summer to make out,” Charlie told him with a glare, obviously not impressed with his performance so far.

“Yeah, _all_ summer,” Dean argued. “But I can still ditch you two for part of it.”

Cas snorted. “My boyfriend is such a charmer.”

Dean grinned at him. _Boyfriend_. It had almost been a full week now and the word still sent a little thrill through his body.

“Oh god, they’re getting _worse_ ,” Jo complained.

“Maybe we can gross them out so much they leave,” Cas stage whispered to Dean.

Charlie threw a handful of chips at them. “Keep it in your pants, you two. We’re trying to watch the movie.”

“Keep it in _your_ pants, Bradbury,” Dean said. “We all know you have the hots for Andy.”

“Have you seen her?” Charlie replied, waving her hand frantically towards the television screen.

“Only every time you get to pick the movie,” Jo said with an eye roll, sitting up so Charlie could see it across the coffee table between them.

“Please, Goonies is a classic. You know you love it.” Charlie threw some chips at her, too.

“You better clean up all these chips before my mom gets home and kills me for it,” Dean told Charlie.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll clean it up. Now be quiet, Andy is talking about how she smacked that sexist buttface Troy.”

The other three rolled their eyes in unison.”

Charlie just huffed. “You guys are lame. Where’s Sam? He’s the only one of you with good taste in women.”

“Sammy hasn’t been feeling very good lately,” Dean told them. “That stupid ass monster has him freaked out still.”

“That was so shitty of those assholes,” Jo said. “If they ever come out of hiding, I’ll kick their asses.”

The others nodded in agreement. The three students thought to be responsible for the prank had yet to return home. Dean thought it was a pretty excessive reaction to avoid what would probably be a stern talking to. But apparently it also wasn’t exactly unusual for them to take off for a few days at a time, and according to their parents they had been planning a road trip to celebrate their graduation. And since they had been banned from walking in the commencement ceremony for ditching the last day and presumably pulling the monster prank, their parents figured they skipped out a couple days early.

“Just don’t let Sam hear you say that,” Dean said. “He’s convinced the thing was real.”

Dean felt Cas shrug his shoulders. “Why couldn’t it be?”

“What? Real?” Dean turned to Cas. “Seriously?”

Cas shrugged again.

“Uh, because there’s no such thing?” he suggested with an implied _duh_.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Cas said. “The story had to start somewhere, right?”

Dean groaned. “I forgot you were a little brother,” he said. “Dude, the monster is just something you tell your younger siblings to mess with them. It’s not real.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “Big brothers don’t actually know everything, Dean. If Sam says he saw something, then I’m inclined to believe him. He’s not exactly prone to bouts of hysteria.”

It was Dean’s turn to roll his eyes, and he did so exaggeratedly. “Okay, Cas. Except he was freaked out about the monster before. And come on, they found the dumb costume dumped next to where Sam said he saw the thing.” He took his arm back from where it was resting around Cas.

“Didn’t his friends say the thing was real, too?” Charlie piped in.

“Oh, don’t you start, too,” Dean snapped. “It wasn’t real. It was jerks in a costume!” He looked back and forth between Cas and Charlie, the former glaring, the latter looking slightly apologetic but determined. He turned to Jo. “Do you believe in the stupid thing?”

Jo shrugged. “Not really,” she said. “I mean, I don’t think Sam’s lying, but monsters aren’t real.”

“Thank you,” Dean said. “But still, two against me, and one of them my own boyfriend!”

“Dramatic,” Cas muttered under his breath.

“I heard that,” Dean said.

Cas shot him a glare. “I meant you to hear it,” he said. “Because you are being dramatic.”

Dean huffed. “Whatever, that stupid thing wasn’t real, and I’m going to kick those jerks asses when they finally show up.”

“If it was really them, I’ll help,” Cas said. “But I think Sam may have actually—“

“Nope,” Dean smacked a hand over Cas’ mouth. “Don’t say it. The thing doesn’t exist.”

Cas wrenched Dean’s hand away. “How do you know?”

“Because it’s not real, Cas. Monsters aren’t real!”

“You saying things doesn’t make them true, Dean,” Cas retorted.

But Dean just snorted. “Same goes for you,” he shot back.

Cas’ eyes narrowed in a glare. “I’m only saying that you should be more open minded.”

“Is watching them fight as weird for you as it is for me?” Charlie whispered to Jo, just loud enough for the boys to hear.

“No,” Jo said at full volume. “It feels like a nice change from the gross flirting.”

“You at least have to admit that you didn’t expect their first fight to be over the monster in the woods.”

“I’ll give you that one,” Jo said. “I definitely thought it would be about something lame like the color scheme for their wedding.”

“They wouldn’t argue over that. Their colors are going to be blue and green, they’re both total saps.”

“That didn’t even occur to me, but you’re totally right,” Jo said. “But wait, I’m still right, because they’d definitely argue for the other color before deciding to combine them.”

“True,” Charlie said, nodding to Jo’s superior wisdom. “Absolutely true.”

“You two assholes done planning our wedding?” Dean cut in, red in the face.

The girls looked over to see Dean and Cas staring at them.

“We weren’t planning,” Charlie said.

“Just speculating on how you guys would plan it.”

The two were completely unabashed at having been called out. On the contrary, Jo had an evil glint in her eye and even Charlie’s grin was more devious than usual.

“Yeah, well, stop it.” Dean crossed his arms. “It’s weird.

Cas turned back to Dean. “I’m not saying that you have to believe in monsters,” he continued like they’d never been interrupted in the first place. “Just that you should listen to what Sam has to say before you make up your mind on the matter. It’s weird seeing him like this. Or rather, not seeing him at all.” He cast a glance towards the hall. “Just because he’s your little brother doesn’t mean he’s not our friend, too.”

Dean felt his heart constricting in his chest. So it was a little lame, but the thought of Cas and Sammy getting along so well sort of made his heart soar. It’s not even like it was a new thing, it was just…

“Fine,” Dean grumbled, putting his arm back around Cas. “I’ll try to be a crazy person for a while so he can convince me.”

Cas smacked him softly in the stomach with the back of his hand, but he was smiling now.

After that things went back to normal. They continued watching the movie, Charlie drooling over Andy (a respectable amount, she was quick to remind everyone), munching on snacks, and eventually deciding against going outside to play a round of catch since it was still far too hot out there. They all left before dinner, but not before making plans to hang out the next day, Cas and Dean making extra plans to meet up earlier for some alone time.

 

Dean knocked on Sam's door and after a muffled, "What?" opened it and stepped inside. 

"What?" Sam asked once it was clear that Dean wasn't going to say anything.

Dean rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "So, Cas sort of yelled at me today."

"Trouble in paradise already," Sam said. "What a tragedy." He rolled his eyes and turned to look out of his window.

"No, it's not," Dean sighed again. "He says I should have listened to you."

Sam didn't turn around but Dean could tell by the stiffening of his posture that he was definitely more invested in this conversation than he had been previously. "You did listen to me."

"Yeah, but Cas seems to think that the monster might actually be real."

Sam spun around in his desk chair at that. 

"I'm not saying that I think it is, but, he uh, he made me promise to hear you out without making up my mind on it first. So, tell me what happened. All of it." He went over and sat down on the edge of Sam's unmade bed. "And hey, even if I still don't believe you, at least you have Cas, right? Charlie, too, I guess. But Jo's still on the fence."

Sam smiled, and it broke Dean's heart a little to realize that it was the first smile he'd seen on him since the whole monster ordeal happened. 

“You promise you’ll listen to me?” he asked

Dean looked down at himself. “Is that not what I’m doing?”

“You can’t laugh or anything, got it?” Sam told him in his best threatening voice. He even wagged a threatening finger.

Dean crossed his heart. “Got it.”

“And no rolling your eyes,” he added.

Dean had to refrain from doing so at that moment, but still gave a nod of agreement. “Promise. Now come on, convince me, man.”

Sam shifted in his seat and threw another glance out the window before turning back to Dean. “Okay,” he said, and then started his story.

 

Sam wiped the sweat from his brow. Whoever decided that it was a good idea to make the fifth graders go on a stupid end of the year trip in the woods was dumb. It was sweltering, even with the shade the thick canopy of trees provided.

“Hurry, Sam, we’re going to get left behind!” Ava Wilson huffed and hurried to catch up with the rest of their classmates.

And that was another thing. Why weren’t they allowed to choose their own field trip buddies? Not that Ava wasn’t nice (usually), but he had caught Jess’ eye before their pairings had been announced and had really been looking forward to being her buddy. He supposed he should just feel lucky that he hadn’t gotten paired with Becky. She was… _intense_.

“Cheer up, Sam,” Andy said, coming up from behind him. “I don’t think they paired up anyone with who they wanted.”

“I heard that, Gallagher. You’re lucky to have me.”

Sam and Andy both turned to face Jake Talley who was wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Man, did they have to pick the hottest day of the year to do this, though?” he asked

“Maybe they’re trying to weed out the weak ones before we go to middle school,” Andy suggested.

“Your brother tell that to you, too?” Jake mocked him.

Andy rolled his eyes. “I never should have told you about that.”

“Why?” Jake said. “It’s not like I didn’t think your brother was crazy before you said he saw the monster. Now we just know for sure that he’s a weirdo. Dude’s got a conspiracy theory for everything.”

Sam laughed, refusing to admit that Ansem’s story about the yellow eyed monster still gave him nightmares.

“He didn’t even see anything,” Andy said. “My mom and dad say he says stuff like that for attention.” He shrugged. “They say the divorce is hard on him, but I’m just like, whatever, you know? My parents are way happier apart than together, and besides, now we get two Christmases. But I mean, he has been acting extra weird lately, though, so I guess they must be right.”

“Sam!” Ava had come back to yell at him. “We are getting left behind!” She stomped her foot on the ground to emphasize her frustration with him.

“You can go ahead,” Sam told her.

Ava rolled her eyes. “You’re my buddy, dummy. I have to stay with you otherwise I’ll get in trouble for losing you.”

“Ugh, fine,” Sam sighed. He turned to Jake and Andy. “Come on, guys.”

Jake snorted. “We’re not the ones being beckoned.”

“Yeah, but you’re still going to get in trouble if you’re this far behind,” Sam said.

Both Andy and Jake shrugged. “Too hot to care,” Andy said and Jake nodded his agreement. “And it’s not like they can really do anything to us. It’s the last day of school. We’re not even going back to this school next year.”

Jake pointed at Andy. “What he said.”

“Sam!” Ava shouted again.

Sam looked back and forth between them all, but it seems Ava had finally had enough and marched down to where the three boys were. She grabbed the front of Sam’s shirt and began pulling him forward at an aggressive pace.

“Jeez, Ava, calm down!” Sam said, trying to wrestle his shirt out of her grip, but her fingers were like vices.

“No, I don’t want to get left behind. These woods are creepy and I just want to—“

But then she stopped, Sam crashing into her from his momentum.

“Ava, what the heck?” he said, but she shushed him and grabbed his arm, holding tight enough to bruise.

“What is that?” she whispered.

“What is what?” he asked, trying to remove her death grip. It was one thing when she was just ruining his shirt, but this _hurt_.

She shushed him again and then pointed down the path.

Off to the side in the deep shade was a tall, gangling figure.

“Oh my god, what is that?” Sam asked. He tried not to think of Andy’s brother’s story about the monster or Dean’s taunts.

“I don’t know, I just asked you!”

“Jake! Andy!” Sam called, not taking his eyes off of the creature that was now stalking toward them at an alarming rate.

“Ugh, what?” Jake said, cresting the top of the hill, Andy on his heels. “Holy shit!”

The four of them screamed as the monster came at them, running backwards and tripping over themselves to try and get away.

Laughter rang through the air.

Sam stopped and turned to see the creature split into two, the top half hopping off of the bottom and pulling a black cloak off to reveal two teenagers standing there laughing at them. Another one came out from behind a tree, a hand on his stomach as he tried to contain his own laughter. Sam’s face heated red in shame and anger. It was just a stupid joke.

“Guys, it was just some dumb high schoolers,” he said turning around to tell the others. But none of them were listening. They were all too busy staring at a darkened patch of the woods where Sam could see two floating yellow orbs hanging above the forest floor. They came closer and closer until Sam could just make out the shape of the body beneath them, tall and twisted and gangling like a rotting birch tree.

The sounds of the woods were wiped out and the thing opened its mouth and spoke to them.

 _My children_.


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey, Cas,” Dean smiled when his boyfriend opened the door. He leaned in and gave him a peck.

“Dean,” Cas replied with a smile of his own and stepped aside to let him in. “Charlie and Jo aren’t coming until later, right?”

“Uh, yeah, we told them to come at three, I think.”

“Good,” Cas said. “That’s around when Gabriel will be coming back as well.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Gabe isn’t here?”

“I may have forgotten to tell him you were coming over early.” He bit his lip and blushed.

“Why Castiel,” Dean said. “Who would have known you were such a rebel?”

Cas huffed and crossed his arms. “I just think it’s completely stupid that we’re not allowed to be alone together anymore just because we started dating. Shouldn’t they trust us? Trust that they raised us well enough not to be stupid?”

Dean stepped into Cas’ space. “I don’t know, should they?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t they trust that _I_ won’t be stupid?”

Dean snorted. “Come on, Cas. Give my mom and Gabe a break. It’s sort of Parenting one-oh-one to not let their kids be alone with the people they’re dating. And it’s Kids one-oh-one to work around it.” He slid his arms around Cas’ shoulders and gave his best flirty grin.

Cas shook his head fondly and wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist. “You are ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but you like me anyway,” Dean said. “Now whaddya say we go get stupid.”

“If by ‘stupid’ you mean make out on the couch until Jo and Charlie arrive, I’m on board.”

Dean practically tripped over himself trying to pull Cas to the couch with him.

 

Three hideable and one obvious hickey later, they broke apart.

“Really, Dean?” Cas said one he caught his reflection in the television screen.

Dean shrugged. “Looks good on you.”

Cas punched him in the arm.

“Ow!” Dean said, rubbing the slight sting away.

“That’s what you get. Gabriel is my brother, Dean! Do you really think he’s ever going to let me live down having a Texas sized hickey on my neck? Do you really think he’s going to let _you_ get away with giving me a Texas sized hickey?”

“Uh…” Dean rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I hope so?”

“Assbutt,” Cas shook his head. “You do realize I’m having dinner at your house tonight, right?”

Dean’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh god.”

“There it is,” Cas said.

“Okay, we can fix this. Just…” Dean bit his lip and cast his eyes around the room looking for inspiration. He snapped his fingers. “Wear a collared shirt, it’ll totally cover it.”

“Oh yes, because not only do I want to wear a button down shirt in triple digit weather, it won’t be conspicuous at all.” Cas rolled his eyes and sank back into the couch cushions in defeat.

“We can just say you wanted to look nice for the whole dinner with the family thing. My house has air conditioning. You’ll be fine.” Dean added his most charming smile to really sell it.

Cas narrowed his eyes. “Fine, but you’re going to suffer with me. You have to wear a flannel shirt.”

“Flannel?” Dean shouted. “Are you kidding me? Come on, Cas, you want me to die of heat stroke?”

“You’re being dramatic again, you just said you have air conditioning. Besides,” he shrugged and pretended like it was nonchalant, “I like that blue and green one you have. It makes your eyes look nice.”

Dean couldn’t decide if that was cheesy and touching or just plain cheesy, so he settled on blushing and grinning. “Okay, but then you gotta wear that dark blue one you have. Because, it, uh, makes your eyes look pretty good, too. Not that they don’t look awesome all the time, but you know what I mean.”

Cas smiled, big and gummy. “You think my eyes look awesome?”

Dean rolled his own eyes. “Dude, have you ever looked in a mirror? Or have you been too busy checking me out in my green and blue plaid shirt?”

“You would know,” Cas replied. “You, apparently, spend a lot of time looking at my eyes.”

Dean opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the entrance of Gabriel.

“Are you two being gag worthy again? Because I told you, hearing you two spout off your sappy crap more than once a week is just too much for me to stomach.” He walked into the living room and Cas immediately slapped a hand over the mark on his neck.

“What are you doing home so early?” Cas asked him, trying not to show his panic.

“Oh, you know,” Gabe said airily, waving his hand around. “Just checking up on my baby bro and making sure I won’t have to raise any teen pregnancy babies.”

Dean and Cas both grew very hot in the face.

“That’s not biologically possible. And even if it was, we’re not—you don’t have to—“ Cas spluttered.

“Don’t worry, Cassie,” Gabe said, walking over to ruffle his hair. “I trust you to keep Dean in check.”

“Hey!” Dean said.

Gabe just laughed. “Sounding indignant might work if I couldn’t see proof of your handiwork,” he said, pulling Cas’ hand away from his neck. He gave a low whistle. “Aren’t you supposed to be having dinner with the family? That won’t make things awkward at all.”

“Blame Dean,” Cas said.

“Oh, I am,” Gabriel replied. “Didn’t I say something about not treating my baby brother like a floozy?”

“Uh, I think the phrase you used was ‘some common tart,’” Dean said.

“You have a good memory,” Gabe said, eye twinkling a little menacingly. “So you’ll remember what else I said that night.”

Dean nodded and repressed the sudden urge to gulp. “Yeah.”

“Good. Just so we’re clear on how Cassie should be treated.” He glared at Dean a little longer.

“I’m right here,” Cas growled. “And perfectly capable of independent thinking and decision making, thanks.”

Gabe went back to his usual, too happy-go-lucky self and he ruffled Cas’ hair again.

A little zing went through Dean at how good Cas’ hair looked all messy like that. But he quickly shook himself free from the thought, Gabe’s threats still fresh on his mind.

“We know, Cassie, we know,” Gabe said in the most patronizing manner he could muster. “But hush now, the grown-ups are talking.

“I’m four months older than Dean,” Cas rumbled. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Like at a job or ruining someone else’s life?”

“Yeesh,” Gabe said, holding his hands up in surrender. “If this is the thanks I get for raising you then I will definitely not be helping with your teen pregnancy baby.”

Cas hid his face behind his hands and sunk down into the couch.

“Good luck with the family dinner tonight,” he said, walking out of the room with a wave.

Once Dean was sure that Gabriel had gone to his room, he pulled Cas’ hands from his face. “You can come out now,” he said.

“This is all your fault,” Cas told him.

“Come on Cas, I said I was sorry,” Dean said, trying for his best puppy dog look. He wasn’t quite sure it worked.

“No you didn’t,” Cas said.

Dean scrunched his face in thought. “Huh, guess I didn’t.” He shrugged and Cas punched his arm again. “Ow! What was that one for?”

“For not even pretending to be sorry for the mess you’ve gotten us into.”

“Mess?” Dean scoffed. “Now who’s being dramatic? It’s a hickey. It’s expected of us. We’re teenagers.”

Cas shook his head. “Charlie and Jo are coming over soon. They’re going to make fun of us for it. When your brother sees it, he’s going to make fun of us for it and _definitely_ tell your mom even if she doesn’t notice on her own and the dinner tonight is going to be a complete disaster. And that’s not even counting the fact that Sam will probably team up with Gabriel again to mock us for it. I did not appreciate those extra lyrics they came up with for that stupid kissing song.”

“Hey, I’m pretty sure those extra lyrics were all your brother. I don’t even think Sam knew half of what they were singing about.” His cheeks turned pink. “ _I_ didn’t even know half the stuff they were singing about.”

“It could have been worse,” Cas told him. “I believe he was trying to reign himself in, in deference to your brother.”

“Oh god,” Dean said.

Cas nodded. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t try to bring Jo and Charlie in on anything. Then, I believe, we’d see how bad it could truly get.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean agreed, nodding along with him. “Let’s stop hanging out at your house. Or, at least, stop inviting Jo and Charlie over. Why do we hang out with them again?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “They’re our friends, Dean.”

“Yeah, but they’re seriously cutting into our making out time.”

Cas rolled his eyes, again, and pulled Dean towards him by the neck of his shirt. “Then let’s make the most of the alone time we do have.”

Dean grinned and tried closing the distance but Cas pulled back slightly.

“No more hickeys,” he admonished.

Dean held up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”

Cas snorted softly. “I remember our boy scout days, Dean. Forgive me if I find that promise a little underwhelming.” But he still pulled Dean the rest of the way in.

 

They both wore collared shirts to dinner that night. Cas had decided to go with ill-advised payback.

“You two look very sharp tonight,” Mary commented when she saw them.

“Thank you,” Cas replied, tugging his collar straighter.

“Cas thought we should try and make a good impression.” Dean shrugged and tried to steal a piece of shrimp from the pan Mary was making scampi in only to have his hand swatted away.

“You’re doing a great job at that, aren’t you, Dean,” Mary said with a pointed look.

“I’m the son,” Dean told her. “You’re stuck with me either way.”

Mary snorted. “Yeah, but shouldn’t you be trying to make a good impression on Cas?” She lowered her voice to a whisper, “We want to make sure he sticks around.”

Dean threw his arm around a now blushing Cas. “Nah, he’s stuck with me, too.”

Mary rolled her eyes, albeit fondly. “Would you go and get Sam? Dinner’s ready.”

“On it,” Dean said, steering Cas with the arm still wrapped around him.

“I meant it when I said dinner’s ready,” Mary called after them. “That means no detours!”

Cas stumbled as the back of Dean’s neck and ears turned bright red. “Mom!” he said, springing away from Cas.

“You think I wasn’t your age once?” she asked with a wistful look that made Dean feel a little nauseous.

“ _Mom_!” Dean complained again. “I thought you said we were trying to get Cas to stick around!”

“Dean,” Cas said. “I think you’re forgetting who my brother is.”

“Ugh, that’s not the point, Cas,” Dean told him.

Cas shook his head. “Let’s just go get your brother,” he said and grabbed Dean by the arm and dragged him down the hall.

“You know you’re supposed to be on _my_ side in arguments, right?” Dean asked.

“I am when you’re not being ridiculous,” Cas said. “Besides, you were planning on a ‘detour,’ weren’t you?”

“Not a long one!” Dean said. “You telling me you’re not up for it?”

“Now that your mom has called us out on it?” Cas asked. “I can’t say I am. Having a…” he looked around and dropped his voice to a whisper, “ _hickey_ is bad enough without her catching us in the act.”

“You make it sound like you don’t appreciate my artwork,” Dean said in mock offense.

Cas gave him a little shove before knocking on Sam’s door. “Sam?” he called. “Your mom sent us to get you for dinner.”

When there was no answer Dean knocked on the door. “Sammy!” He opened the door.

Sam was sitting at his desk, staring out of his window at the dying sunset.

“Dude, are you deaf?” Dean asked. “Dinner’s ready.”

Sam seemed to shake himself out of whatever stupor he’d been in and turned to face them, looking surprised to see them. “What?”

“Seriously?” Dean said with raised brows. “Dinner. Is. Ready.” He slowed each word down to really make his point.

“Oh, okay,” Sam said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Bet you he won’t get in trouble for being late,” he told Cas, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards Sam as they left his room.

Cas shrugged. “Yes, but he’s probably stopping to wash his hands, not make out with his boyfriend.”

“I’m starting to feel like you don’t want to make out with me,” Dean said. “I think it’s giving me a complex.”

“Dramatic,” Cas muttered as the two of them made it back to the kitchen.

Dean pushed him and Cas pushed back, both giggling when they stumbled their way back to where Mary was getting plates down from the cabinet.

“Can you two set the table?” she asked, handing Dean the plates.

“’Course,” Dean said, handing the plates to Cas and going to grab the cups.

 

The three of them sat at the table waiting for Sam for a full five minutes before Mary said, “You did tell him dinner was ready, right?”

Dean nodded. “We did. He’s probably still staring out of his dumb window. I seriously think that’s all he’s done for the past week straight.”

Mary looked concernedly towards the hall where Sam’s room was and sighed. “I’ll go get him,” she said. “But can you two please do something with him after dinner? Video games or a movie or just something?”

“Of course, Mrs. Winchester,” Cas replied before Dean could answer.

“Thank you, Cas,” Mary said with a radiant smile.

Dean turned to Cas once Mary was down the hall. “You really don’t want to make out with me, huh?” he asked, but he was smiling.

“Don’t be a jerk,” Cas told him.

Dean leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Just joking. I—uh—” he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy, “I really do like that you, you know, don’t mind hanging out with Sammy, too.”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas said. “He’s like the brother I always wanted but never had.”

“You have a brother.”

“I said the brother I always wanted,” Cas repeated.

Dean roared with laughter. “Come on, Gabe’s not _that_ bad.”

“I hope you’re proposing a trade, then. Because I am one hundred percent on board with that.”

“What? No way,” Dean said. “I don’t want to actually live with the guy. I’ve heard your horror stories.”

Cas glared at him. “I thought he wasn’t ‘ _that bad,_ ’” Cas said.

“You know you’d miss all those secret stashes of candy he has lying around,” Dean told him.

Cas bit his lip. His sweet tooth wasn’t anywhere near as bad as his brothers, but he did like a good candy bar at the end of the day. “Your mom would buy me candy.”

“What? We’re trading the whole family now?” Dean asked.

“Well, I hardly expect to just trade brothers. If I gave you Gabriel and you gave me Sam then I would be the oldest in my household and therefore have to try and provide, and at fourteen, I’m just not ready for that type of responsibility. The only logical conclusion would be that we trade places. So, I’m ready whenever you are.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You’re such a dork, man. You have put way too much thought into this.”

Cas shrugged. “Not really. I’m just very good at making plans on the fly.”

With a soft snort of laughter, Dean leaned over and kissed him again, this time on the lips.

Mary came back then, Sam following behind her.

"Ugh, gross," Sam said.

Dean sprung away from Cas. “Yo, Sammy,” Dean said, trying to cover the sound of his rapidly beating heart with his nonchalance. “What happened to you?”

Sam shrugged. “Sorry, just got distracted I guess.”

“By your window?” Dean teased, but at a harsh look from Mary Dean stopped. 

"Dean and I were going to play catch outside after dinner, if you wanted to join us," Cas said, turning to Sam. 

"Oh," Sam said. "It's not the catch that ends with one of you catching the other, right?"

Dean's face heated up, but Cas just shrugged. "I'm sure we'll be able to reign in our raging teenage hormones for your sake, Sam. If not, Gabriel has taken to squirting us with a water bottle when he says we get too close."

Sam and Mary both laughed, while Dean's face turned an even brighter shade of red than it had been before. "Cas!" he hissed. 

Cas just shrugged. "I'm just trying to make sure Sam feels safe enough that he can start hanging out with us again. It's been weird not having him around." He turned to look at Sam while Dean pondered just how devious his boyfriend really was, guilting Sam into hanging out with them. “I mean,” Cas continued, “we used to hang out all the time before Dean and I started dating. Have we really changed that much?”

Mary shot Cas a small, grateful smile. 

"Sorry," Sam said, staring down at the plate in front of him. "I guess I just haven't been feeling very good lately."

"But you'll hang out with us today, though, right?" Cas asked him. "And I know that Charlie and Jo have been wondering where you were, too. We're hanging out with them at the park tomorrow, so you should definitely come."

"The park?" he asked, head perking up.

"Yeah," Cas said. Then, seemingly upon remembering that the monster incident happened in the woods right there, he went on, "Oh, but we don't have to. We can go somewhere else. See a movie, or try and brave the public pool. You can pick." 

Dean grabbed Cas' hand under the table and squeezed it, hoping that it properly conveyed how grateful he was.

"No, the um, the park is fine," Sam said. "Thanks for inviting me."

"Of course, Sam," Cas said in his graveled voice. 

After that Sam seemed to come back to himself, more so than he'd been since the whole monster debacle took place. Dean couldn't stop smiling. He had his brother back, he had the best boyfriend in the world, and his mom surprised them all with a cherry pie. It was pretty much one of the best days ever. Even after Sam saw Cas' hickey and started teasing them while simultaneously making gagging sounds.


	7. Chapter 7

“Did you hear?” Cas asked the next morning when Dean opened the door.

“Hear what?” Dean yawned. He had woken up to Cas’ knocking.

“You know that Ansem kid?” Cas said, walking past Dean into the house.

“Uh, Gallagher? Andy’s brother?” Dean asked. “That weird one, right?”

Cas nodded. “He’s gone missing.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“He’s missing. His parents reported it last night after he didn’t come home.”

“How do you know this?” Dean asked.

They made their way into the living room and plopped down onto the couch. Dean turned and laid down on it, draping his legs across Cas’ lap and leaning his head back against the armrest.

“Gabriel told me,” Cas replied, matter of fact.

“And how does Gabriel know?” Dean asked.

“He’s friends with all the cops,” Cas said, shooting Dean a look that clearly conveyed _how do you not know this_.

But that just got Dean chuckling. “Who would have thought that all cops would be such clichés.”

Cas smiled as well. “To be fair, he knew a lot of them from deployment before he opened his donut shop.”

"Nah," Dean said. "I think I'll stick with my donut lovin' cop clichés, thanks."

Cas rolled his eyes and squeezed Dean just above the knee where he knew he was ticklish.

Dean yelped and sat up. "Not cool, dude."

Cas just gave him an innocent smile. "What?"

"Don't you 'what' me, Castiel Novak," Dean said. 

Cas shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about, Dean." He kept his smile in place, this time making it look more demure. 

"That's it," Dean said, and then launched himself at his boyfriend.

That's how Sam found them five minutes later, although the tickling had subsided into make out territory pretty quickly once their faces had come within range. 

"Ugh, do I have to break out the hose?" Sam asked. 

"Mom'll kill you if you get the living room wet," Dean told him. "Now give us another like ten minutes, Jo and Charlie aren't here yet."

Cas pushed Dean away and stood up, trying to readjust his clothes and pat down his hair to make himself look more presentable. "Sorry, Sam," he said. He cleared his throat. "Your brother makes it quite easy to get carried away."

"Ugh, something I didn't need to know, Cas," Sam said as he gave them a wide berth on his route to the chair on the opposite side of the room. 

Dean sighed, knowing that he'd lost. He smoothed the front of his shirt out. "So you excited to go to the park?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"Haven't been there in a while," Dean said, trying for casual as he looked out of the corner of his eye for any sort of reaction. 

Sam shrugged. "Haven't felt very good lately."

"Well, we're glad you're feeling better now," Cas said.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Even if you are a pain in the butt, I did sort of miss having your ugly mug around."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks Dean."

"Of course, squirt," Dean said, walking over and ruffling his hair.

Sam batted his hands away. "Get off, you jerk!"

“No way,” Dean said. “Not until you say that you missed me too while you were being all weird and mopey.” He grabbed Sam’s head and started giving him a noogie.

“Ugh, get off!” Sam shouted. “Cas, help!”

“Don’t you dare!” Dean said. “Unless you’re coming to help me.”

Cas stood frozen, looking between the two brothers and trying to decide which to help and which to betray. Luckily, he was saved by the doorbell ringing not a moment later.

“Oh, thank god,” he said, leaving the brothers to their fight and going to answer the door.

Charlie and Jo were standing on the porch, already fanning themselves from the heat. Charlie threw up the Vulcan sign in greeting while Jo pushed past him to get into the cool air of the house.

“Why do people ever leave their houses?” Jo grouched, heading straight for the kitchen where she proceeded to open the fridge door and fan herself with it. “Why exactly are we going to the park today? It’s like the devil’s butthole out there.”

“Great visual, thanks,” Charlie said as she and Cas followed Jo into the kitchen. “And anyways, we’re going to the park because my parents keep yelling at me to,” she adopted a deeper, authoritative voice for the next bit, “ _quit playing those video games and get some fresh air already_. But like, they don’t have to go outside? Why are only children subjected to such torture?”

“I don’t know, but my mom is the same,” Jo said.

They both turned to look at Cas, but he just shrugged. “Gabriel doesn’t really care what I do as long as it doesn’t lead to teen pregnancy.”

“Lucky,” Jo said.

“Double lucky,” Charlie added. “I mean, I would be worried for you, but you can’t knock Dean up.”

“Speaking of getting knocked up,” Jo said, closing the fridge door with a soft _thwump_. “Did you hear what they’re saying?”

“What who are saying?” Charlie asked.

Jo rolled her eyes. “The whole town, dummy. About why those lame ass high schoolers ran away?”

“No,” Cas said.

“Well, I overheard some people talking in the bar last night and they were all saying that the girl got pregnant and was sent to like live with an aunt or something to have the baby so no one would know.”

“Then where did the boys go?” Cas asked.

Jo shrugged. “They think that they both ran away because they thought they were the father.”

“Men,” Charlie shook her head.

Jo nodded in solemn agreement. “Seriously, right?”

Cas furrowed his brow and cocked his head to the side. “Who said that?”

Jo shrugged. “Like everyone at the bar. Why?”

“I just don’t think it’s what happened,” Cas said.

“What? Why not?” Jo demanded.

Cas shrugged. “Because it just doesn’t make sense.”

Jo opened her mouth to argue, but Charlie cut her off. “Why? What have you heard about it?”

“That she was a lesbian,” Cas said.

Jo and Charlie’s mouths both dropped open.

“What?” they asked in unison.

“How do you know that?” Jo asked.

“She always came into Gabe’s shop with another girl. And I once caught them kissing out back near the dumpsters. It was pretty gross.”

“Rude,” Charlie said.

Cas rolled his eyes. “I meant the dumpsters.”

“Oh,” Charlie said. “Well, okay then.”

“Well then where did she go?” Jo asked. “She wasn’t knocked up by her lesbian girlfriend. And the dudes definitely didn’t have to worry about being a baby daddy.”

Cas bit his lip. “Well…” he said, stretching it out. “Have you heard about Ansem?”

“That weirdo kid? Sam’s friend’s brother, right?”

Cas nodded.

“What about him?” Charlie asked.

“He went missing last night.”

“What?” Charlie and Jo shouted.

“Gabe told me this morning. His parents reported it last night.”

The three of them were silent as they all thought about the thing none of them wanted to admit they were thinking about.

“Ansem kept telling people he had seen the monster,” Cas said.

“And the teenagers did go missing right after Sam and his friends saw the monster,” Charlie said. “And the last place anyone saw them was the woods.”

“No,” Jo said, shaking her head. “This is stupid guys, come on. Just because there’s a stupid legend about a stupid monster doesn’t make it real—“

“What the hell are you guys doing in here?” Dean asked, stomping his way into the kitchen. “Just raiding my fridge without so much as a hello?”

“I was dying of heat, Winchester,” Jo said. “I needed to use your fridge to cool off.”

Dean opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the ringing of the phone.

“I got it!” Sam shouted from the living room.

“Seriously,” Dean said. “What the heck are you guys doing chilling in the kitchen?”

“Talking,” Jo answered. “We’ve found the best way to actually have a conversation now is to keep you and Cas apart. Otherwise things go downhill pretty fast.”

“Shut up, Jo,” Dean said, punching her in the arm.

“Ow!” she said, punching him back. “You shut up.”

“Guys,” Charlie said, placing herself between them to stop their petty squabble. “Cut it out. My god, am I the only one left that can act normal? Because I don’t think that says a lot of good things about our little group.”

Cas furrowed his brow. “I’m still acting normally.”

“Hate to break it to you, Cas,” Jo said, giving him a pat on the shoulder, “but you’ve never acted normally.”

“Hey, back off of my boyfriend, Joanna Beth,” Dean said.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Alright, I tried. I’m out. Coming, Cas?”

Cas nodded and followed Charlie out of the kitchen and into the living room where Sam had a phone pressed to his ear.

“It’s a good thing they’re not actually brother and sister,” Charlie said. “Because if they had to live together…” She let her sentence trail off, letting their imaginations fill in the blanks.

“I suspect it would be like World War III,” Cas agreed. “Possibly an apocalypse.”

Sam smashed the phone back into its receiver. Charlie and Cas both spun around to look at him.

“Whoa there, kiddo. What’d that poor phone ever do to you?” Charlie asked him.

“Nothing,” Sam said, eyes darting from Charlie to the phone. “I’m—um—not feeling very good anymore. I think I’m just going to…” He pointed towards the hall and his room and then bolted before anyone could ask him what was wrong.

Charlie and Cas exchanged a worried look as Dean and Jo finally entered the room, still bickering.

“What do you think that was about?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know,” Cas replied. “But Mrs. Winchester is going to be disappointed that we failed to get Sam out of his room.”

Charlie gave him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder. “She’ll understand.”

“If you keep this up I’m going to tell Vic your full name,” Dean threatened as he and Jo finally came to stand next to Cas and Charlie.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jo told him with narrowed eyes.

“Wouldn’t I?” Dean asked, evil grin in place.

A smirk crossed Jo’s face. “Nope, because if you tell Vic that, then I’m telling Cas about that time I saw you wearing pink—“

Dean smacked a hand across Jo’s mouth as his face turned bright red. “Jo, I swear to _god_!”

They both glared at each other as Jo pushed his hand away, agreeing in silence that their mutual blackmail called for a truce.

Finally, they turned their attention away from each other.

“Where’d Sam go?” Dean asked, looking around the room.

Cas sighed. “He said he wasn’t feeling good anymore.”

“What?” Dean said. “Are you serious?”

Cas nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“What the hell happened? He was just so friggin’ excited about the park.”

“Perhaps you should go and talk to him,” Cas suggested.

Dean grimaced. “Alright, I’ll be right back.” He walked down the hall and knocked on Sam’s door. “Yo, Sammy.” He opened the door a crack and peeked inside. Sam was sitting on his bed, his knees drawn to his chest where he hugged them. “What happened man?” he asked, opening the door fully and coming inside.

“Nothing,” Sam said, but his voice wavered.

Dean sat down on the bed beside him. “Really? Because it feels like you’re getting all weird again. We were supposed to go and play at the park today, man. I even convinced mom to give us some money for the ice cream truck. We can get the Ninja Turtle popsicles! She gave us extra, too, in case we want to splurge on a Choco Taco.” He lifted his eyebrows up and down. “I know that’s your favorite kind of taco,” he singsonged.

“I just—I don’t want to go anymore. I don’t feel good anymore.” He hid his head in his knees. “Just go without me.”

“Nah,” Dean sighed. “If you don’t want to go, I’m not exactly excited to go and die in this ridiculous heat. Come back to the living room and we’ll pig out on chips and watch a movie. You can pick.”

“I’m just not really in the mood right now,” Sam told his knees. “Maybe later.”

Dean let out an explosive sigh. “Come on, man. You’ve gotta come hang out. First of all, we all miss you. Even though you’re an annoying pain in the butt like ninety nine percent of the time, you can be okay sometimes. And Charlie and Jo and Cas all miss you, too.” His words didn’t seem to sway Sam, however. “Okay, and second,” Dean went on, “Mom will kill me if I don’t get you to do something with us today. You know she’s not going to believe that you wanted to be alone. She’s going to think that I told you that you couldn’t hang out with me and my friends. Come on, just sit in the living room with us.”

"Dean," Sam groaned. "I just don't want to."

"Too bad," Dean said. He reached over and put Sam in a headlock. "Now you're coming with us, or you're going to get the worst noogie of your life."

"Dean!" Sam whined, trying to wriggle out of Dean's grip.

"You got ten seconds to decide," he told him. "Ten... nine..."

"Dean, stop! I don't want to hang out, I don't feel good!" 

"You feel fine, you're just being a butthead."

"No, I'm not! You're being the butthead, butthead!"

"Oh yeah, great comeback, Sammy." 

“Dean, get off!”

“No, not until you come hang out with us!” He put his knuckles on Sam’s head.

“Fine!” Sam shouted, and Dean finally allowed him to squirm his way out of the headlock. “Ugh, you’re such a jerk,” he said, fixing his hair where Dean had messed it up.

“Whatever, bitch,” Dean replied. “Now let’s go.”

Dean led them back out to the living room.

“Sam!” Charlie shouted, jumping up. She gave him a hug. “Glad you decided to join us. Finally I have someone to talk girls with. It’s basically been unbearable.”

Jo rolled her eyes but came over and gave Sam a hearty pat on the shoulder. “Charlie is being dramatic, but it is good to have you back.”

“Thanks,” Sam mumbled, shy under all the attention.

“So,” Charlie said, clapping her hands together. “Where to? Park? Movies? Two steps over to the couch?”

Jo answered by taking those two steps and plopping herself down onto the couch.

“Alright,” Charlie grinned, seating herself next to Jo and pulling Sam down next to her.

Dean smirked. “I guess that leaves us to squeeze together on the chair, Cas,” Dean said.

Cas smiled. “But Dean, however will we both fit?”

The other three rolled their eyes and pretended to gag. Dean flipped them off.

The five of them spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon channel surfing and chatting. Sam even seemed to come out of his shell and act like his old self again. All in all, they agreed it was a good day. Even if Jo and Charlie were later reprimanded for not going to the park like they had promised.


	8. Chapter 8

“I miss you,” Dean said into the phone.

He could hear the smile in Cas’ voice when he answered, “You saw me two hours ago.”

“So?” Dean said. “I’m allowed to be sappy about this.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, in that case, I miss you, too,” Cas said.

“You better,” Dean told him. “You better miss me every minute we’re not together.”

“Every second,” Cas replied.

Dean groaned. “Are you sure we can’t hang out tomorrow?”

Cas heaved a sigh across the line. “Yes. Gabe has been very adamant about it. He thinks we need more brotherly bonding time.”

“But fishing? Really?”

There was a pause. “Don’t you like fishing?” Cas asked.

“Well, yeah,” Dean said. “But you and Gabe don’t exactly strike me as the fishing type.”

“I don’t think Gabe does like it, really,” Cas said. “But I do. The quiet is nice. And it’s the last thing I can remember doing with my dad before he left.”

Dean bit the inside of his cheek to keep from replying. Cas’ dad had left when he was seven, leaving a recently returned from duty Gabriel to look after him. Cas had come to peace with it, but Dean, who had had to watch his best friend cry himself to sleep every night for a week, hadn’t. He supposed it also didn’t help that Dean’s own father had left not too long ago, the wound fresh enough to make Dean’s knuckles go white where he was clenching them.

“You’re expecting to get a quiet fishing trip?” Dean asked him, electing to just ignore the last part of his statement. “You do realize Gabe is the one taking you, right?”

“Get him enough taffy and I’ve found that can buy up to two hours of relative silence.”

Dean snorted. “Well, I hope you have a good time tomorrow. I should probably let you go, then.”

Cas sighed. “It is getting late. And I have to be up at five.”

“Cas!” Dean said, looking over at his clock which told him the time was now twelve-thirteen. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Because I wanted to talk to you.”

Dean couldn’t help the smile that stole across his face. “Okay. But try and get some sleep now, okay?”

“Alright, Dean.”

“Goodnight, Cas,” Dean said.

“Goodnight, Dean.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I already miss you.”

Dean hung up with a smile on his face and flopped back onto his bed.

Was this normal? Feeling light enough to float away but still aching and empty? He _had_ only seen Cas two hours ago, but somehow it just didn’t seem like enough. He just wished they didn’t have to leave each other at the end of the day. And how absolutely, gut-wrenchingly _pathetic_ was that? Well, it’s not like he ever pretended that he wasn’t pathetic when it came to Cas, but _still_. He was moping about being away from Cas for a day. He could never let anyone else find out. It was too embarrassing. The only reason he told Cas was because he knew Cas felt the same way. And thank god for that. He didn’t know what he’d do if Cas didn’t like him back.

Dean was brought out of his musings by a soft _thump_ outside of his room.

Curious, he got up and crept over to his door, pressing his ear against it. He could hear the soft padding of footsteps through the wood. He bent down and grabbed the baseball bat that was half sticking out beneath his dresser and gripped it tight before he slowly turned the knob and then threw his door wide open.

No one was there.

He peeked his head around down the hall, tightening his grip on the bat. Someone was rounding the corner. A short someone with floppy brown hair.

Dean let out a sigh of relief and put the bat down. He didn’t know what his brother was doing up at midnight, but at least it wasn’t a robber. He followed Sam’s path down the hall, keeping quiet so as not to wake his mom.

He poked his head into the kitchen, but Sam wasn’t there. With a furrowed brow, Dean went towards the living room, stopping when he saw Sam at the door, trying to turn the knob.

“Sammy?” Dean asked, but there was no response. “Hey, Sam!” he tried again, this time grabbing his shoulder and shaking him.

Sam nearly jumped out of his skin and he spun around with wide, terrified eyes.

“What—what are you—where am—“ Sam looked around. “Why are we at the door?”

“Uh, I was sort of hoping you could tell me that.” Dean kept a grip on Sam’s shoulder, sure that it was the only thing grounding his little brother who’s eyes kept flitting around as if the answers could be found hidden somewhere in the air.

“I don’t—I was sleeping. I don’t know why I’m here.” He was shaking.

“You were sleepwalking?” Dean asked. “Shit, I sort of always thought that was just in the movies.”

“Dean, I don’t know what’s going on with me,” Sam whispered, and Dean was horrified to realize that Sam was crying.

“Hey, hey,” Dean said, bringing Sam in close and hugging him. “It’s okay, dude. Plenty of people sleepwalk, I’m sure. We’ll just have to get a lock for your door, huh?” He tried for a laugh, but Sam kept on shaking in his arms. “Maybe it’s just something you ate. I mean, I’ve never seen someone eat so many Pixie Stix in one sitting before. And you washed it down with a big ol’ glass of Dr. Pepper. That’s gotta do something to a person’s insides.”

Sam sniffed, and it sounded almost like a laugh.

“Yeah, see? Just all that sugar running around in your veins, man. Let’s go back to sleep and we’ll tell mom in the morning, huh?”

Sam tightened his grip where he was clutching Dean’s shirt.

“You can squeeze in with me,” Dean said. “Come on, let’s go grab your pillow. We can pretend it’s like when we used to go camping out in the backyard and we had to squeeze in that tiny ass tent. It’ll be fun.” He pushed Sam away just enough to look him in the eye. “Okay?”

Sam sniffed again, reluctantly letting go of Dean and wiping his nose with his arm. “Okay,” he said in a small voice.

“Good,” Dean clapped him on the shoulder. “Now let’s go grab your pillow.”

 

The next morning (more like early afternoon), Dean and Sam made their way to the living room to tell their mom about the events of last night but stopped short as the local newscast she was watching caught their attention.

“… And another child has gone missing, this time Ava Wilson, age ten. She was last seen in her home just last night. If anyone has any information regarding this case or that of Ansem Gallagher, reported missing four days ago by his parents, we urge you to contact the sheriff’s department immediately. Searches are ongoing…”

Dean turned from Ava’s latest school picture, blown up to fit onto the television screen, to look at Sam who was frozen to the spot, all color drained from his face. 

"Sammy?" Dean said uncertainly. 

But Sam didn't listen to him. He just turned and ran down the hall, slamming the door to the bathroom. 

Mary tried for two hours to coax Sam out of the bathroom before she was successful. 

Dean and Mary both watched from the doorway to the kitchen as Sam picked apart the food on his plate without really eating. 

"You said he was sleepwalking last night?" Mary asked in an undertone so Sam wouldn't overhear.

Dean nodded. "He was flipping out, mom. Crying and shaking. I mean, I guess I'd be freaked too if I woke up and was trying to run away. But he was..."

Mary put a comforting hand on his arm. "You should have woken me up."

"I didn't want to freak him out more than he already was," Dean said, shaking his head. "I didn't think it'd be a good idea to make a big deal out of it, you know?"

Mary sighed and nodded. "Thank you for taking care of him last night. You're a pretty good big brother, you know that?"

Dean blushed and shrugged the comment off. 

"I mean it, mister," she told him. "How about tomorrow we go out for burgers at that diner on Main?"

Dean bit the inside of his cheek.

"Yes, Cas can come," Mary laughed. 

He smiled. "Thanks, mom."  
"Of course, sweetheart," she said and ruffled his hair.

 

"Maybe we should volunteer to help canvass the neighborhood," Dean suggested later that evening when the three of them were seated on the couch watching Sam's favorite episode of Ninja Turtles and eating Sam's favorite pizza. In Dean's opinion it had too many vegetables to still be considered edible, but for once he didn't comment and just pulled the offending pieces off and put them on the side of his plate. 

Mary and Dean both glanced at Sam who was nibbling on a piece of pizza crust with his knees pulled tight to his chest, glazed eyes resting on the television screen.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Mary said. “Maybe you and your friends can go to the police station tomorrow and help put up posters.”

“You wanna come with, Sammy?” Dean asked.

Sam lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

"Cool. I'll go call Cas and set it up." He stood and took his plate to the kitchen, dumping the, in his opinion, offensive vegetables in the garbage and then squashing his paper plate over it in the hopes that Mary wouldn't find out just how many he picked off.

He grabbed the phone off the receiver and sat in one of the chairs at the kitchen table and listened to it ring before it was answered with a bright, "Dean-o!"

"Uh, hey," Dean said. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Hm," Gabe said, "we just walked through the door and the phone went off. I'm sure I'll find about a hundred missed calls on the answering machine, too. I mean, the gall of me, to expect you and Cas to be apart for twenty four hours! They should lock me up in shackles and throw me to the wolves! Oof—"

"Dean?" Cas had taken the phone from Gabriel.

"Hey Cas," Dean said, a smile stealing across his face. “How was fishing?”

“Not peaceful,” Cas replied and Dean laughed. “But it was fun. Gabriel nearly fell out of the boat at one point. It was hilarious but I think it scared all the fish away. How was your day?”

“Not the best,” Dean said. “My night was pretty crappy, too.”

“Aw, miss me that much?” Cas asked, smirk evident even over the phone.

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Dean said, rolling his eyes. “Gabe was right, we should lock him up for keeping us apart. It’s basically a crime.”

“Agreed. I’ll start looking for the shackles. You start looking for the wolves.”

Dean laughed. “Okay, but when you’re looking I’d stay out of Gabe’s room. He doesn’t seem like a very vanilla-in-bed kinda guy and I don’t want you to get scarred for life.”

“Ugh, gross, Dean,” Cas said. “I don’t want to think about Gabe doing anything like that!”

“Uh, duh?” Dean said. “Just trying to save you some serious therapy bills later.”

“How noble of you,” Cas replied.

“Eh, not super noble,” Dean said. “I mean, by the point you’ll realize you’ll need the therapy we’ll probably have a joint bank account, so really, I’m just looking out for my own money.”

Cas didn’t respond immediately and upon looking back at what he just said, Dean’s heartrate skyrocketed and his face flushed.

“Uh,” he said. “I didn’t—I just meant—“

“Who says you’re going to be the main breadwinner in our household?” Cas interrupted. “Maybe I’m just keeping you around as my trophy husband.”

Dean’s whole body unclenched at Cas’ casual acceptance. “You kidding me, Novak? You’d definitely be the trophy husband. Have you seen you?”

“Have you seen you?” Cas asked him back.

“Maybe we can win the lotto and then we can both be trophy husbands,” Dean suggested.

“Alright, agreed,” Cas said. “We’ll win the lotto.”

Their conversation only got cheesier from there, Dean completely forgetting the reason he called Cas in the first place.

Until he went to bed.

“Can I stay with you again?” Sam asked, hugging his pillow to his chest.

Dean forced a smile on his face. The night before hadn’t exactly been comfortable, but Sam had been silently freaking out all day, and Dean sort of had been, too, if he was being honest. Sam had tried to leave the house last night, in his sleep. And who knows if it actually would have happened if Dean hadn’t heard him. At least this way he’d know for sure if Sam tried to get up in the middle of the night and not have to wait up listening for him.

“’Course, Sammy,” Dean said, scooting over on his bed to make some room.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, climbing into bed next to him.

“Dean?” Sam said softly about five minutes later.

Dean grunted in response. He was nearly asleep.

“I’m scared.”

Dean forced his eyes open and saw Sammy lying next to him, eyes wide open, blanket clutched to his chest.

“It’s going to be okay, Sammy,” Dean told him.

“He keeps whispering to me. In my dreams.” Sam’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I don’t know how much longer I can ignore him. I think I’m going crazy.”

Dean sat up and stared down at his little brother. “What are you talking about? Who’s whispering?”

Sam didn’t answer.

“Sam, who’s whispering to you?”

“His name is Azazel.”


	9. Chapter 9

There was another special report on in the morning. This time Jake Talley, eleven years old but looking much older in the school picture they put on the screen.

Sam threw up all over the hardwood floor.

Mary drove them to the police station where Dean picked up flyers for all three missing children while Sam was asked if he could tell them anything about the missing children since he had known all three, however vaguely he had known Ansem. Sam, Dean had to give it to him and his persistence, told them it was the monster in the woods. The police didn’t believe him but sent him on his way with their gratitude and a plea to try and think of anything else that could help them.

Sam decided to opt out of hanging up posters for the missing children, instead taking their portable phone and shutting himself up in his room.

Mary made Dean promise four times that he’d be home before sunset and that he’d stay in public areas and call every two hours before she let him go meet up with Cas, Charlie, and Jo.

 

“I can’t be the only one thinking this, right?” Charlie asked, twenty minutes into their posting.

“You’re not,” Cas told her, taping a picture of Ava up next to those of Jake and Ansem on the large glass front windows of Gabe’s donut shop.

“What are you guys thinking?” Jo asked.

“That it’s the monster,” Cas said, his graveled tone making his declaration sound even more serious. “It has to be.”

“Guys,” Jo said. “You can’t be serious.”

But they were.

“Dean, back me up on this,” Jo said, turning to him.

Dean shrugged. “I—I don’t know, Jo,” Dean said. “It sounds crazy, but…”

“But what?” Jo demanded. “But all of a sudden monsters are real?”

“I don’t know!” Dean exploded. “But I do know that Sam is freaking out. And I don’t blame him. He was sleepwalking the other night. I caught him trying to leave. His hand was on the doorknob and everything, so what am I supposed to believe, Jo? That Sam suddenly started sleepwalking for shits and giggles? That he just happened to develop this problem after he saw a monster in the woods, and then his friends started disappearing from their homes in the middle of the night with no sign of a break-in or anything?”

“I’m not saying they can’t be connected,” Jo said. “But a monster? It’s just—it’s just some creep or something. Or maybe they did just run away! Just like the high schoolers.”

“Or maybe the monster got them, too,” Charlie cut in. “They were last seen in the woods, right? Sam and his friends saw them and then they saw the real thing? Nobody saw them after that.”

“You guys sound insane,” Jo told them.

Cas shrugged. “Better to sound insane than let anything happen to Sam.”

Dean grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“Let’s go to the library,” Charlie said. “We can hang up some more posters and see if they have anything about the monster.”

“They do,” Cas told her.

Dean looked over at him. “How do you know?”

A slight pink tinge touched Cas’ cheeks. “I told you Gabe used to scare me about the monster when I was little. I may have spent some time trying to find out everything I could about it so I could be prepared if I ever encountered it.”

Dean felt the sudden urge to kiss his boyfriend. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, but for once he didn’t act on it. “What are we waiting for?” he asked the group at large.

“Honestly? Pigs to start flying,” Jo said. “Because that’s the only way I’m going to believe this conversation is actually happening right now.” But she still followed them as they changed course, Cas peeking his head into Gabe’s shop to quickly shout their new plans.

 

Information was sparse, but they weren’t really expecting much. After two hours of reading and searching the only hard facts they found were that five children had gone missing about fifty years ago and was still considered an open case since no one seemed to know what happened to them.

“But how do we fight it?” Dean asked, for what felt like the billionth time. “How do we get it to stop?”

“This book says a blade dipped in holy water will destroy anything evil,” Cas said. “I’m sure it could work on the monster.”

“But does it say for sure?” Dean asked. “This thing needs to be stopped.”

“Nothing says anything for sure,” Charlie said. “Nobody’s ever tried to fight this thing. Or, seen it for that matter.”

“Because it doesn’t exist,” Jo muttered under her breath. The other three ignored her comment like they had to the dozens of others she’d made.

“Guesswork is as good as we’re going to get,” Cas said.

Dean nodded. “I guess you’re right. Any other guesses on how to kill it?”

The other three shrugged and looked helplessly down at the books they were reading.

“Alright,” Dean said. “Well, one plan is better than none.”

 

The next day Andy Gallagher was reported missing. His parents were absolutely beside themselves, having now lost two sons. Their tearful plea for them to be returned (or to return since no signs of a struggle could be found anywhere) had Mary hugging Sam and Dean so tightly to her that Dean felt as if he might bruise.

Dean had shared with Sam everything they had learned at the library. It had seemed to brighten his mood, enough for him to smile even, but that had been before Andy. And now Sam was just… there. Going through the motions without really seeming like he was present. It was disconcerting to say the least.

“Come with us,” Dean said. “We’re going to try and sneak Jo’s knife collection into St. Christopher’s to dip them in the holy water. Who knew Jo being a psycho would come in handy someday, huh?”

But Sam didn’t respond.

“Sammy,” Dean said. “Earth to Sam.” He waved his hand in front of Sam’s face and snapped his fingers a couple of times. “Yo, Sammy.”

That finally seemed to shake him out of it. “What?” he asked.

“Dude, is it in your head again?” Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. “What were you saying?”

Dean bit his lip. “We’re going to take care of this, Sammy. I promise.”

Sam nodded, but Dean was sure he hadn’t actually heard him.

“Keep fightin’ him, Sammy,” Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder. Sam didn’t respond. “We’ll get the rest.”

 

And then the worst thing in the whole entire world happened.

Dean woke up and Sam was gone.

“Mom!” Dean shouted, tearing out of his room, heart pounding. He checked Sam’s room across the hall but it was empty.

“Dean?” Mary said, rushing out of her room. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Sam’s gone!”

“What?” she asked. “What do you mean Sam is gone?” She moved past him to check Sam’s room, only to see the same emptiness Dean had.

“He went to bed in my room again but then I woke up, I don’t know why, and Sam was gone.”

She went to check the rest of the house, Dean hot on her heels. “Was he sleepwalking again?” she asked.

“I don’t know, not since that first night,” Dean said. “But I don’t think he would just leave like this.”

The front door was open when they got there.

Dean’s heart skipped a beat and then another before he and his mom were running outside, shouting for Sam. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean sat next to his mom as the police questioned them. He wasn’t paying attention, couldn’t. His mind kept switching from racing thoughts to a complete blank as he tried to figure out what to do. He and his friends had only managed to anoint one of Jo’s knives in the holy water at St. Christopher’s before a nun had seen them and they had been escorted out of the church. It would have to be enough. They had to move quickly. They had to get Sam back.

“Dean!” Mary said and he jumped. “Dean, the detectives are asking you a question.”

He turned with wide eyes from his mom to the suited man and woman in front of him. There were other officers there as well, cataloguing the scene, patrolling the perimeter. “Huh?” he asked.

The male detective sighed, but the woman gave him an understanding smile. “We know this is hard,” she said. “But we really need you to think of anything that could help us find your brother. Anything he’s said, anyone you’ve seen lately, anything that’s seemed off. No matter how little a thing you think it might be.”

Dean stared at them. They didn’t listen to Sam when he told them. They wouldn’t listen to him either. But he had to tell them something, right? He had to at least try.

“He…” Dean took a deep breath. “He kept talking about the monster. The monster in the woods.” He saw the detectives share a short, but exasperated look. “I know, I know it sounds crazy,” he continued quickly. “But it’s what he thought it was. The thing that’s been taking his friends. And… and I don’t know what else it could be. It—it makes sense, if you think about it. It all—everything adds up,” he tried to insist but he could see that they didn’t believe him. He wanted to rail against them, rage and yell and shout that they were being so stupid, so close minded. “Just look in the woods,” Dean told them. “If Sam ran away, that’s where he would have gone.”

“And why do you think that?” the male detective asked, making a note in his little notepad without taking his eyes from Dean. It didn’t seem like he was trying to be mean, Dean was sure he was just doing his job, but the question still made him set his jaw into a defiant frown.

“Because that’s where the monster was telling him to go,” Dean said.

“The monster was talking to him?” the woman asked. Dean could tell she had tried to refrain from sounding condescending, but it didn’t really work out.

“I don’t know,” Dean said. “That’s what he said, but I believe him. I mean, all the kids that have disappeared have seen the monster, right? They were all there.”

“Ansem Gallagher was the first to disappear, and he wasn’t there,” the male detective said.

Dean groaned in frustration. “But he saw the monster, too! He told anyone who would listen that he saw the stupid thing like a week before Sammy and the others saw it! And Sam told you all of this yesterday and you didn’t believe him and now he’s gone, too!”

“Dean,” Mary said. “Maybe you should go and lie down in your room.”

“No!” Dean shouted. “No, I’m sorry, but Sam is missing! And I’m telling them where to find him and they’re looking at me like I’m crazy! You’re looking at me like I’m crazy!”

“It’s been a long night,” Mary said. “I think you might feel differently about this after you’ve rested.

Dean felt a stab of betrayal shoot through him. He knew he sounded crazy, he knew that bringing up the monster was a longshot, but _still_.

His mom’s eyes were filled with tears as she looked at him, but her gaze was steady.

“Fine,” he said and with that he got up and marched into his room, slamming the door behind himself. He flung himself onto his bed, pulled a pillow over his head and screamed himself hoarse. It was only after he felt lightheaded that he sat up and grabbed the phone he kept on his bedside table.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” a grumpy Gabe growled into the phone.

“Gabe,” Dean’s voice broke on the single syllable. “Please, I just, I need to talk to Cas.”

“Dean,” Gabe said. “I know you love my baby bro and all, but this is just getting ridicu—“

“Sam’s missing.”

There was a pause. “What?”

“Please, Gabe,” Dean said, and yup, he was definitely crying now.

Gabriel cursed and shuffling sounds came over the phone and then a muffled attempt at waking Cas. It took a few minutes, but finally Cas came on the line.

“Dean?” Cas’ voice soothed the raw edge off of his nerves.

“It got him,” Dean said. “It got Sammy.”

 

Gabriel and Cas showed up twenty minutes later with a couple boxes of fresh donuts.

Cas pulled Dean into a tight hug and Dean just deflated, burrowing himself as deep as he could into Cas’ embrace and letting out the sobs that he had successfully kept in thus far.

“We’re going to get him back, Dean,” Cas murmured over and over again. “We’re going to get him back.”

 

A search was being organized. Dean was slightly mollified by the fact that they had listened to him enough that they were going to search the forest for Sam and the other missing children.

Jo and Charlie met up with them at the park with the rest of the volunteers. Jo had the holy water doused knife hidden by the knee high socks she was wearing.

“It would be a lot easier to hide this thing in the winter,” she grumbled.

“I’ll be sure to take the complaint to the monster,” Cas told her.

Jo rolled her eyes. “I’m still not one hundred percent on this,” she said. “I mean, I’m still not one hundred percent on there actually _being_ a monster, but by this point I’m more worried that there is one and we’re going in with one little knife and no plan.”

“We can’t exactly make a plan when we don’t know anything,” Charlie said. “Besides, there’s a bunch of police here and they have guns, so I’m feeling pretty good about this, actually.”

Dean let their chatter blend into that of the other volunteers and police as he stared into the woods. They looked so peaceful, so beautiful. Dean could hardly believe that they held such a horrible, dark, and ominous secret between their sun-kissed leaves.

“We’re going to find him, Dean,” Cas said, coming up from behind him and slipping their hands together.

Dean nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“They’re gathering everyone to start,” he said next. “You ready?”

Another nod. He thought about his mom, sitting at home next to the phone. They thought it would be best if she stayed in case Sam came home or someone called. There was a plain clothes officer with her. He couldn’t stop replaying the look on her face as she tried to tell Dean that he couldn’t go on the search. She was so terrified. Dean had never seen her look that way before. Never felt her clutch his shoulder so tightly it hurt. But what hurt worse was that tiny hint of anger buried underneath the worry and fear. Dean was the one who told Sam about the monster. Was it Dean’s fault that Sam was gone now? Maybe if he hadn’t been thinking about the monster, maybe it wouldn’t have come. Maybe it would have left Sam and his friends alone.

Mary, of course, didn’t believe in the monster, but that hint… She was so tired of hearing about it. Exhausted and exasperated and frightened and Dean was the one who started it all.

It had taken thirty minutes and Gabriel swearing on his life that Dean would not be let out of his sight for even a second to convince her to let him go.

The search was fruitless. They searched everywhere. Looking for any sign of any of the children but there was nothing. Not even a suspiciously bent twig, according to the police. Dean tried telling them they needed to look closer, to look where they saw the monster in the first place, but the police and volunteers had checked the area already and there was nothing. Nothing.

“But they’ve got to be there,” Dean said, later once the four of them were back at Dean’s house.

“I’m sure they are,” Charlie said. “But the monster has to have some sort of hideout that’s yet to be discovered, otherwise other people would have seen it by now.”

“Charlie’s right,” Cas said. “Besides, I don’t think it would reveal itself to that many people. We weren’t exactly being quiet when we searched. We’re just going to have to go back when it’s calmer. Tonight.”

Dean nodded. “Tonight.” He looked to the others.

“I’m in,” Charlie said. “There was definitely something in the book I was reading about how it prefers the night anyway.”

All of them looked to Jo.

“If you don’t want to go, it’s okay,” Cas said. “But we would appreciate you letting us borrow your knife.”

“Whoa,” Jo said. “Who said I’m not going?”

“You don’t believe in the monster,” Cas replied.

“So?” Jo asked. “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to help get Sam back. And if you guys are crazy enough to think that fighting an imaginary monster is the way to do it, then I’m with you.” She glared around at them, daring one of them to comment. But the other three stayed silent. Dean nodded and tried to focus on keeping his breathing steady.

 

Dean slid his window open as silently as he could. His mom was in her room, supposedly sleeping, but Dean knew she was awake. Her voice floated underneath his door, angry and tired and scared. Dean couldn’t make out any of the words, but the tone told him she was talking to his dad. Usually he’d try to sneak closer and get a better scope of the conversation, figure out if he needed to comfort her or leave her be, but not tonight. He had a job to do.

He dropped his baseball bat outside, hoping the thud it made when it connected with the hard and cracked dirt outside wouldn’t carry. He hoisted himself up and through his window next, landing much more softly as his sneakers made contact with the ground. He left his window open, too afraid to make more noise than necessary.

Looking left and right to make sure nobody was around, he took off at a run towards the park. He was already late in meeting up with everyone, having seriously underestimated his mom’s determination to keep him in her sight all night. It was the first time since his dad had left them that he had been happy to see his mom’s lips thin into a hardened frown when she answered the phone. She had excused herself to her room and Dean had seized his chance to get away.

Now he ran, as fast as he could, worn converse pounding the pavement, adding to the fast paced drumbeat of his heart. Twice he had to jump behind bushes as the increased police presence made itself known in the form of patrol cars coming down the street at an unbearably slow crawl.

Finally, the park came into view ahead of him, the woods looking as eerie as he would expect in the dark. He saw his friends standing huddled against the tree line and made a bee line for them.

He swung his bat over his shoulder as he reached them. Cas had his own baseball bat, but he held his at his side like it was an extension of his own arm. Jo played with the knife they had managed to bless, flipping it from hand to hand, throwing it in the air in graceful arcs before catching it again. A nervous tic. And in Charlie’s tight grip was—

“A nerdy letter opener?” Dean asked as he saw the silver plated, miniaturized replica of Sting from The Hobbit. “Really, Charlie?”

Charlie jumped as she turned to see Dean standing behind her. “It’s the only thing I had at my house,” she said defensively, gripping it tighter in front of herself. “My family is full of nerds, not sport enthusiasts!”

Jo and Dean rolled her eyes, but Cas took two steps forward and enveloped Dean in a hug. Dean let himself fall into it, but only for a moment. He pulled away and gave Cas a tight smile before turning to face the woods. The others did the same, their four silhouettes lined up at the tree line.

“Thank you guys for coming,” Dean said. “But don’t feel like you have to. This is… the stupidest thing we’ve ever done before.”

“We’re not going anywhere, Dean,” Cas said.

“Being smart is overrated, anyway,” Jo added, giving Cas a playing nudge with her shoulder.

“We’re with you,” Charlie said.

Dean let out a sigh. “Then let’s go.”

The four of them slowly made their way into the trees, the humid air sticking the shirts to their backs while the occasional chill rang up their spine. They were silent as they moved, sticking to the path they all remembered taking when they were in fifth grade. The four beams of their flashlights swung this way and that as they tried to search for anything.

“This is where Sam said it happened,” Dean told them once they’d made it to the top of a slight hill. He turned his light to the left and right, the beam dancing through the branches.

“I can’t see anything,” Charlie said, turning her flashlight to the trees as well.

“Sam said he stepped off the path before he saw the real monster, right?” Cas asked, moving to the very edge of the path.

Dean held him back with a hand on his shoulder. “It’s too dangerous,” Dean said. “Let me go first.”

Cas shrugged Dean’s hand off. “You’re being dramatic again,” he told him and stepped off the path.

The other three held their breath, waiting for the monster to pop out and attack or devour their souls or whatever it is that the monster did to unwitting children who wandered too far off the path, but nothing happened.

Jo let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “This is so stupid,” she said. “The monster isn’t real. We’re freaking ourselves out over nothing.” She marched past Cas and into the heart of the woods, fallen leaves and debris crunching under her feet. She made it five feet before she let out a scream and disappeared from view.

“Jo!” the others all shouted, running to where they had just seen her disappear from, flashlight beams swinging.

“Still here,” they heard and they all turned their flashlights to the ground where Jo was planted face first.

“Oh my god, you scared the crap out of me, Jo!” Charlie scolded her.

“Yeah, well I scared the crap out of me, too,” Jo replied as Charlie helped pull her to her feet. “I thought I felt something grab my arm and then my foot got caught in a stupid tree root.” She dusted herself off.

“Where’s your flashlight?” Cas asked her.

She looked down at her hands. “Must’ve dropped it,” she said and then her face drained of color. “Shit!”

“What?” Dean asked.

“I dropped the knife, too.”

The other three trained their flashlights on the ground, hoping to see a flash of silver. Jo dropped to the ground and began patting over the dirt where she had fallen.

“Why did we only bring one stupid holy water knife?” she demanded angrily. “And why are the stupid woods so dark at night?”

Dean sighed and lifted his flashlight to look further into the woods, the beam skirting across tree trunks and disappearing into darkness until something white caught his eye. “What the—“ he said, taking a step forward and trying to bring the light back to where he had seen the figure. “Guys, I think I saw something over here.

Cas was the first to lift his light to help. “What is it?”

Their lights both landed on it at the same time.

“That’s—isn’t that Ava Wilson?” Cas asked.

It was.

Charlie and Jo turned to look as well and there she was. A couple dozen feet away stood Ava Wilson, head down and hair blowing in a breeze no one else could feel. She was wearing pajamas, pink bottoms and a shirt with the Power Rangers logo, both ragged looking now with stains and rips. Her feet were bare and covered in dirt and leaves. She wasn’t looking at them.

“Ava?” Dean called, stepping forward. “You’re Ava, right?” But the girl made no sign she had heard anything. Just kept standing there.

“Dean, something’s wrong,” Charlie said. “There’s something wrong with her.”

“She’s Sam’s friend,” Dean said, turning to look at Charlie.

That was when Ava moved. Her head snapped up and she charged them. The four of them screamed, but Ava veered at the last second and took off into the woods.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Jo demanded. “No, seriously guys. This is not okay. This was fun for a hot minute, but now there’s creepy ass little girls trying to kill us!”

“Nobody’s making you stay,” Dean told her, tightening his grip on his bat. “You can leave anytime you want.”

“Like hell I’m leaving,” Jo said. “If you guys are going down, obviously I’m going down with you. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here.”

“Same page,” Charlie said in a squeak. “Definitely on the same page. I mean, video games are one thing, but they don’t exactly prepare you for the real thing, you know?”

“Let’s go,” Dean said. He handed Jo his flashlight and gripped his bat in both hands. “I think Ava was leading us somewhere.”

“But the knife,” Jo said, pointing her new flashlight towards the ground in the hopes of seeing it.

“I don’t think you tripped by accident, Jo,” Cas told her.

“Well,” Jo said. “This night just keeps getting better and better.” But she followed as the other three took off towards where they saw Ava running.

“Stick together, guys,” Dean said as they walked.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Charlie said. “What do you think happened to Ava? Is she like under a spell or something? Are spells real now, too? Oh god, I should have brought my wand instead of this.” She brandished her letter opener.

“Yeah, because we’re not already surrounded by useless sticks right now, right?” Dean said while Cas huffed out a laugh.

“Gross boyfriends, still sticking together in these trying times,” Charlie said with an eyeroll.

“Just trying to keep things light,” Dean told her as Cas took the lead by half a step so that he could shine the light for Dean.

“Dean,” he said, holding an arm out to stop him and the others.

“What?” Dean asked.

Cas responded by shining the light higher. “I think that’s Ansem,” he said.

Charlie and Jo shined their lights on the figure standing between the trees in front of them as well. And there he was, standing the same as Ava, nonexistent breeze ruffling his hair.

“This is seriously like straight from a horror movie,” Jo whispered. “Creepy kids, the woods in the middle of the freaking night, an actual _monster_.”

“Don’t forget the ragtag group of barely teens,” Charlie added.

“That’s good,” Jo said. “Barely teens have a much higher survival rate than regular teens. Nobody is sexually active, right?”

“I’d appreciate it if you two stopped trying to make this scarier than it already is,” Cas said. “Ruminating on the fact that our lives have turned into a horror movie is not helping us in this situation.”

“Ruminating?” Jo asked. “Can always count on you to throw some SAT prep at us years early and in the worst situation possible.”

“Guys, shut up,” Dean said. “I think he’s about to do something.”

And he was. Ansem lifted his head to look at them. Unlike Ava, his movements were slow, and he lifted a hand and pointed behind them.

Automatically, the four turned to look, but there was nothing there.

“Oh my god,” Jo said. “I can’t believe a creepy possessed kid just pulled a ‘made-you-look’ on us.”

They turned back to face Ansem, but this time he wasn’t alone.

Dean and Jo swore, Charlie squeaking out what might have been an expletive in elvish.

Seven figures stood before them, statue like. The missing teens and the missing children. Everyone except for—

“Where’s Sam?” Dean whispered. “It’s everyone but Sammy.”

“Maybe this means the monster didn’t get him,” Charlie said.

“Then where is he?” Dean demanded.

All of a sudden, two yellow orbs appeared above the children, glowing the color of bile in the darkness.

“Where’s Sam?” Dean called, taking a step forward.

A horrible silence fell on them then. Thick and oppressive and filling their ears with the quiet.

_He’s mine. They’re all mine now._

The voice was horrible, it sounded like sludge and acid and rot, seeping in through their ears and coating their bones.

“He’s not yours!” Dean shouted.

_They’re all mine. My special children._

“They’re not,” Cas said, stepping up next to Dean. “Let them go.”

_But they don’t want to go. They came here to be with me. They came because they want to be with me._

“They don’t!” Dean said. “It was you! You got in their heads and made them!”

The yellow orbs got bigger and started coming closer. It was only then that they saw that they weren’t just floating eyes like the Cheshire Cat, but attached to a humanoid body so twisted and emaciated that in the dark it looked just like another towering sapling.

Dean and Cas subconsciously took a step back towards the girls.

_I did not make you come here._

It came closer. It came so close they could smell the rot of it, like a compost heap filled with maggots and raw meat.

And then someone stepped out from behind it. Sam. Shaggy hair, pajamas two inches too short because he was growing faster than their mom could buy him clothes, kind hearted, pain in the butt little brother, _Sammy_.

Dean stepped forward. “Sam,” he said, desperate, pleading. But Cas held him back.

“His hand, Dean,” Cas said.

They all looked down, and in Sam’s hand, glinting in the light from their flashlights was—

“My knife!” Jo said.

Sam took a step forward on bare feet caked in dirt.

“Sammy,” Dean said. “Sammy, it’s me. It’s Dean and Cas and Charlie and Jo. Come on, man.”

But Sam didn’t listen. Couldn’t listen, maybe. He just kept taking step after step, his movements jerky and halting.

“Sammy, please,” Dean begged. He raised his bat in a shaky grip, but he knew he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Sam, couldn’t do anything to hurt him. It was Sam.

But it was Sam who was raising the knife that had been stolen from Jo.

_You won’t take my children from me._

Sam raised the knife high, two feet in front of Dean.

“Sammy, please.” Dean’s voice cracked.

But Sam’s eyes were blank as he brought the knife down.

“No!” Cas shouted, running forward and tackling Sam to the ground.

Dean dropped his bat and rushed over to try and pull them apart from where they were scuffling on the dirt. He grabbed Cas and pulled him up, horrified to see that the knife was sticking out of Cas’ shoulder.

Cas was panting as Dean dragged him back to where Charlie and Jo were watching, horrified, as the other seven children stepped forward in varying degrees of jerkiness.

“Got the knife,” Cas gasped out.

“You idiot!” Dean choked out. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Cas said, grabbing the knife by the hilt and pulling it out, crying out with the pain.

“You mean that getting stabbed was the plan?” Dean demanded hysterically, pressing his hands to the stab wound.

“Uh, guys?” Charlie said.

“It wasn’t one of my best,” Cas admitted. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

“Castiel Novak, if we get out of here—“

“Guys!” Jo shouted.

“What?” they both demanded angrily.

Charlie and Jo shone their flashlights onto the children who were now only a dozen paces away, gathering around the monster, Sam getting up to join them.

“What are they doing?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know, I never took Creepy Monster Shit one-oh-one,” Jo said.

“Now’s not really the time for sass,” Dean said.

“Gotta get it out while we still have the chance,” Charlie said. “You go girl, let that sass out.”

The yellow eyes got brighter as the children gathered closer to the monster.

“What do we do, guys?” Jo asked, holding her flashlight aloft.

“The only thing we can do,” Dean said, taking the knife from Cas in a hand still slippery and warm from his blood. “Try not to hurt the kids. Well, maybe the high schoolers. They did try and scare Sammy.”

“What, we’re just rushing them?” Charlie asked.

“I’m open to better ideas.”

“No time,” Cas said and with a harsh cry took off towards the children.

“What the hell, Cas!” Dean shouted, charging after him, the girls staying behind just a moment longer to trade a horrified look before they, too, charged with their own battle cries.

Cas cracked his bat into one of the high schoolers and took the other two down in a tackle that would make a college scout wet himself. Jo pushed Ansem to the ground and jumped over his prone body, tackling Andy. Charlie shoved Ava with a hurried, “Sorry!” and threw herself onto Jake, taking them both down.

That left Dean with just Sam and the monster.

“Sorry about this, Sammy,” Dean said and elbowed Sam hard enough to send him sprawling. He raised the knife and let his momentum carry him to the monster. “This is for hurting my brother, you sick son of a bitch!” he shouted, bringing his arm back to thrust the blade into the monster, but before he could reach it he was grabbed around the throat by a spindly hand attached to a long, sinewy arm and lifted high off the ground. The knife fell from Dean’s grip as he went to scrabble at the monsters fingers cutting off his airway.

_You will not take my children from me._

Dean watched, horrified, as the tables began to turn for his friends as well. After the initial shock of the attack, the children were quick to jump to their feet and retaliate. In his narrowing vision, Dean saw Ava grab Charlie by the hair and pull her off of Jake, throwing her to the ground. Ansem kicked Jo in the chest, sending her spinning off of Andy and onto her back. He saw the teenage girl sucker punch Cas in the stomach as one of the boys picked up the bat he had dropped in the attack and break it on his arm.

Tears stung at Dean’s eyes. He’d led his friends into certain death. It was all his fault.

_I’ll let you see just how much my children love me._

Dean struggled for air as he saw Sam pick up the knife he’d dropped.

“Sammy,” he managed to gasp out. “Sammy, please.”

Sam brought the knife up and Dean stared into his eyes. If this was going to be the end, if this thing was going to make Sam do his dirty work, Dean could at least make sure Sam knew Dean didn’t blame him.

“Sammy, I’m sorry,” Dean choked. “It’s okay.” His chest began to burn.

Sam’s eyes flashed his usual, bright hazel before dulling back the look of the possessed.

_Do it, my child._

“Not your fault,” he whispered as his vision began closing to pinpricks. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

The next thing Dean knew, he was gasping in lungfuls of air as he collapsed to the ground. Dirt was flying into his mouth, making him cough and splutter, but the oxygen felt so nice he didn’t care.

A piercing shriek ripped through the air, sending a ripple through the trees and Dean managed to push himself to his hands and knees to see the monster, hilt of a knife sticking out of his chest, head thrown back in an anguished scream before it began disintegrating before his eyes like ashes rising from a fire.

“Dean?”

The voice was small and scared and _Sammy’s_.

“Sammy!” Dean said, throat raw and tearing with the word. He lurched to his feet and threw himself onto his little brother. “It’s okay, Sammy. Everything’s okay now. You did it.”

Sam hugged him tightly and sobbed into his shirt. “I tried to kill you.”

Dean shook his head vehemently. “That was the monster,” he croaked out in his hoarse whisper. “You saved me. You saved everyone.”

And it was true. All around them the children were slowly coming back to their senses, lowering their fists and makeshift weapons to look around in horror and confusion.

“Where am I?” Ava asked, her voice soft and scared.

“Shit,” Dean heard one of the teenagers say before the soft thunk of a bat hitting the ground. “Kid, are you okay?”

Dean pulled back from hugging Sam just enough to see that Cas was lying on the floor, unresponsive. “Cas?” Dean whispered. He dragged himself across the ground as fast as he could, slipping slightly in the fallen leaves before hovering above his boyfriend.

Cas’ shoulder was still bleeding sluggishly, and he had a large, angry red mark on his temple.

“I’m sorry,” he heard the teen say behind him. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know what I was doing.”

But Dean ignored him. “Cas, please,” Dean said. “Please wake up. I need you.” He put a shaking hand on Cas’ cheek. It was still warm, but that might just be the pervasive summer heat. He slid his hand lower until two of his fingers rested on Cas’ pulse point in his throat and held his breath as he waited… and waited… and _there_. Dean let out a sob of relief. “He’s alive,” he called back to the crowd now gathered behind him. “Cas, buddy, I need you to open your eyes. Can you do that for me?” He brushed some of Cas’ hair from his forehead with shaking hands. “Please?”

“We should get him to a hospital,” Charlie said from behind him.

“I can carry him,” one of the teens said, Dean thinks he remembers his name being Max from one of the news reports.

“I’ll do it,” Dean growled.

“Dean,” Charlie said delicately, stepping forward. “You can’t do it by yourself.”

Dean hung his head in furious resignation and allowed Max to lift Cas’ feet as he grabbed him under the shoulders.

Jo, Charlie, and the teen girl, Lily, ran ahead to call for help as the others made their way out of the forest in varying states of distress. Ava was still crying, silently now, holding tightly onto Jake’s hand. Andy and Ansem walked so closely together that they looked like they were attached at the hip and Sam was practically hanging from Dean’s back where he had a grip on his shirt so tight that Dean was sure there’d be no salvaging it from being stretched out.

They were greeted with flashing red and blue lights and blaring sirens when they finally made it out of the woods. All of their parents were there, too, rushing out of cars with the ignition still on to meet their missing children.

Gabriel reached them before Mary did, with a broken, “Baby bro?” A gurney was hot on his heels and two EMTs carefully lifted Cas from Dean and Max and wheeled him towards an ambulance. Dean tried to follow but was caught up in a bone crushing hug by his mom who haltingly told him between sobs that he was grounded for the next fifty years for sneaking out.


	11. Epilogue

No one quite knew what to make of the returned children all claiming a monster took them, nor that they had been in the forest that they searched, but Dean didn’t care. He didn’t care what anyone said or asked or reported. He only cared that Cas hadn’t woken up yet. Granted, the doctors and Gabriel assured Dean he had woken in the ambulance and that he was perfectly fine and was merely hopped up on pain medication that made him too sleepy to stay awake for long periods of time, but still. Dean hadn’t seen him awake yet and Dean had something he needed to say.

Suddenly, Cas’ eyes started fluttering open and Dean scooted his chair so close he might as well be sitting on the hospital bed with Cas.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said when Cas’ eyes finally opened all the way.

“Dean,” Cas croaked. Then, “Are those roses you’re holding or am I hallucinating?”

Dean blushed the same crimson as the flowers in his hand. “No, you’re not hallucinating,” Dean told him, putting the roses into a vase on the bedside table.

Cas grinned. “Then I must have died and gone to heaven.” His voice was even deeper from sleep.

Dean let out a choked laugh. “You’re not dead, either. Though, for a second there, you had me really scared, man.”

Cas’ smile faltered, but he hitched it back on his face. “Ah, so you’re still dramatic, then,” he said, closing his eyes and sinking back into his pillow.

“Don’t forget pathetic,” Dean told him. He wanted to reach out and touch Cas, but he didn’t know where would be okay. One of Cas’ arms was encased in a white plaster cast (Gabriel had already taken the liberty of drawing a somewhat crude image on it). There were bandages poking out from the hospital gown above his other arm, not to mention the gauze taped to the side of his head where an ugly purple and red bruise crept towards his eye.

“You’re not pathetic, Dean,” Cas said, the smile gone now.

“But I am,” Dean insisted. He sat up straighter in his chair and chanced touching their fingers together. “You see, I have this boyfriend, and he’s great. Pretty much the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.” He couldn’t look Cas in the eyes, instead stared somewhere just above his head. “He’s also a little crazy, which I recently found out when he came up with a plan to _let himself get_ _stabbed_.” The last part was said in the most accusing voice he could muster.

“This started out sounding like it was going to be nice,” Cas said, lips pursed in what was almost a pout.

“Right,” Dean said. “Back on track. Why I’m pathetic." He cleared his throat and continued, "Well, you see, this crazy, wonderful boyfriend means the world to me, and I’ve pretty much known how I’ve felt about him since day one when he saved me from that ball pit in McDonald’s when we were four.” He paused a moment to reminisce. “But you see,” he continued with a shake of his head, “I’ve been too pathetic to tell him just how much I like him. Just how much he means to me. And I almost lost him, so I decided I definitely can’t wait anymore.”

“Is this just a really dramatic way of telling me that you love me?” Cas asked him.

Dean’s eyes snapped to Cas’, all nerves forgotten. “Cas, you turd!” Dean shouted, flicking him in the arm. “You’re ruining my romantic gesture!”

Cas laughed and tried to school his features. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he said, unable to wipe the gummy smile from his face. “Go on.”

“Nope,” Dean said. “It’s ruined. Now I’ll never be able to tell you that I love you, you asshole.”

Cas smile widened. “I love you, too.”

Dean leaned down and kissed him. “Can’t believe you ruined my big romantic gesture,” he said when they broke apart, keeping his face hovering an inch away from Cas’. “I got you roses and everything. Now what are we going to tell our kids about this, huh?”

Cas just rolled his eyes and kissed Dean again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is! I hope you all liked it!! Comments and kudos are always appreciated :) And if anyone wants my tumblr, you can find me at [ireadhpinenochian](http://ireadhpinenochian.tumblr.com/) !


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